In fact the truth is quite the opposite of what you say. Abortion “rights” arises from a belief system that can be seen as an offshoot of mainline Protestant Christianity—which takes the Protestant view of a personalized relationship with God to an extreme version of individualized morality.
Not praying as often as one should is considered immoral too. But "immorality" is not binary, and abortion tends to be quite low on the scale. Especially early abortion, which is specific to one particular branch of Christianity.
>Abortion “rights” arises from a belief system
The same one that got us other human rights, like freedom of speech. It's called humanism. It's different from religions by not being made up.
Also, note the "life from conception" fringe is a relatively recent invention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_thought_o.... Protestantism generally kept the old beliefs instead of adapting the new idea.
Conversely, the notion of a “right to abortion” or a “right to bodily autonomy” is for all practical purposes a religious view. It’s a belief about the nature of human society and the value of human life in its various stages.
I'm a strong proponent of the right to freedom of speech (and I'm pro-choice), but we have to be clear about the fact that these are derived from axioms, which are by definition maxims derived from subjective leaps of faith and not evidence-based objectivity.
I think that's Rayiner's point; you can't admonish people deriving philosophical views from the theistic beliefs and value systems they practice when the opposing side of those views are essentially derived from secular/atheistic beliefs and value systems. At some point in the chain of derived arguments and justifications, you arrive at an axiom whose only justification is "because I believe this should be so" or "because my in-group believes this should be so" or "because <authority figure> believes this should be so" — it's still a leap of faith.
"Humanism" is just another subjective belief system, and its adherents are no more immune to the forces of tribalism and faith-based reasoning as adherents of older belief systems.
Humanism is just as made up and non-falsifiable as any religion, and in some cases more so. If you autopsy a dead body, you won’t find either a soul nor any form of “human rights.”
At least religious traditions are often based on practical experience. For example, in Islam it’s considers a moral obligation to get married and have children. Leaving aside any supernatural basis for that moral dictate, it makes sense given that human societies have to raise a lot of kids simply to perpetuate themselves from generation to generation.
But what about the humanist idea that you have no such moral obligation, and that “child free” people are of equal value to society as people doing the labor of perpetuating society—because of some invisible “human dignity” and “right of self actualization.” That’s pulled straight out of thin air.
> But "immorality" is not binary, and abortion tends to be quite low on the scale.
Not true. Most muslim countries, for example, including the one I’m from, have more restrictive abortion laws than any U.S. state. India similarly has a quite restrictive abortion law (not one inherited from the British, but one of their own construction after an extensive process) from 1971 until its Supreme Court intervened in 2022.
To my knowledge, no major culture that isn’t formerly Christian has the western notion of an individual “right” to an abortion. Even in Asian countries that permit abortion, it’s viewed more in terms of a collective policy of reproductive control than an individual right. That fact is completely unsurprising: deciding when life begins is obviously a matter for the government. Only westerners are so pathologically individualistic as to think that social determination should be subject to overruling by individual morality.
The United States government, which is what we’re discussing is absolutely a secular body. The various religions or non-religions of the citizenry are irrelevant, constitutionally.
What the first amendment doesn’t do is exclude moral beliefs rooted in religion from being the basis of public policy. If the government can regulate conduct that kills living things, then it’s immaterial whether any particular legislation is rooted in the moral framework of Christianity or Islam or Feminism. In the American system, all moral frameworks, whether rooted in religion or not, are on equal footing. That’s distinct from secularism, as practiced by France and formerly Turkey, where religious philosophy is singled out and excluded from the public sphere.
Err, no, that's a common misunderstanding.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits government from encouraging or promoting ("establishing") religion in any way.
It's there to forbid the creation of an official state religion (eg: the Church of England being created to replace the Catholic church back in the day).
See:
> The rhetoric about abortion being the catalyst for the rise of the Religious Right, however, collapses under scrutiny. Evangelicals considered abortion a “Catholic issue” until the late 1970s. In 1968, the flagship evangelical magazine Christianity Today convened a conference with another evangelical organization, Christian Medical Society, to discuss the ethics of abortion. After several days of deliberations, twenty-six evangelical theologians issued a statement acknowledging that they could not agree on any one position, that the ambiguities of the issue allowed for many different approaches. “Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed,” the statement read, “but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.” The statement cited “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as possible justifications for abortion and allowed for instances when fetal life “may have to be abandoned to maintain full and secure family life.”
And this is a real eye-opener:
> Baptists, in particular, applauded the Roe decision as an appropriate articulation of the line of division between church and state, between personal morality and state regulation of individual behavior. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” W. Barry Garrett of Baptist Press wrote.
[1] https://religiondispatches.org/the-evangelical-abortion-myth...
Practically all baptists now have understood that the support or lack of fight against RvW in the 70s was a blot on our past. You can read the resolutions that were passed regarding abortion in the future years: https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/baptist/sbcabres.html
I think most baptist didn't realize that RvW would turn into wide scale infanticide with over 60 million babies killed.
Actually the full-throated racism is the blot on your past, the abortion position change is more of a distraction.[1]
> In 1971, the Supreme Court agreed. In Green v. Connally, the court held that racially discriminatory schools are not entitled to a tax exemption. (Bob Jones University had its tax-exempt status revoked in 1976.)
> White evangelicals were furious. But they could not organize politically by defending racial segregation. Instead, conservative political activists such as Paul Weyrich and Richard Viguerie landed on opposition to abortion as a more “high-minded defense” for their movement, Balmer writes.
[1] https://religionnews.com/2021/09/22/randall-balmer-on-why-ra...
What you’re describing is instead an ideological schism within Protestant Christianity. Since Luther, Protestant Christianity had a strong natalist orientation. That’s why abortion was illegal in every US state by 1910. But during the 20th century, mainline protestantism adopted an anti-natalist view out of concerns about overpopulation and the welfare of the poor. That’s the genesis of the modern US abortion debate.
It’s not accurate to say that these patterns reflect views on abortion being “fluid.” Protestantism isn’t centralized—especially denominations like Baptists. Until the mid-20th century, pretty much all the denominations agreed abortion was wrong. Once the anti-natal movement got going, those denominations fractured and people sorted into different ones. For example, the Evangelical Presbyterian church split from what’s now the PCUSA in 1981. Both are “evangelical.” But we apply the “evangelical” label to one and not the other, based on their views on abortion and other issues.
Let's be clear about what was illegal, because the radical definition, 'life begins at fertilization', is a recent innovation[1]:
> Abortion was not always a crime. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, abortion of early pregnancy was legal under common law.[22] Abortions were illegal only after "quickening," the point at which a pregnant woman could feel the movements of the fetus (approximately the fourth month of pregnancy). The common law's attitude toward pregnancy and abortion was based on an understanding of pregnancy and human development as a process rather than an absolute moment. Indeed, the term abortion referred only to the miscarriages of later pregnancies, after quickening.
[1] https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft967n...
Also, “life begins at conception,” or at another very early stage, isn’t a Christian innovation. That’s the belief in Shia Islam. Certain Sunni schools also prohibit abortion at any stage. In Thailand, a Buddhist country, abortion was illegal at all stages of pregnancy until 2021.
Same thing in Hinduism: https://indiacurrents.com/a-hindu-view-on-abortion/
Prohibitions against abortion, even at early stages, are common across the world’s belief systems. Perhaps the only thing you could call uncommon is the view that abortion is impermissible even to save the life of the mother. But that’s an uncommon view even within evangelical Christianity.
The answer of course is that abortion rights would win by a healthy margin[1] if the public had any say in the matter.
> Pro-choice sentiment is now the highest Gallup has measured since 1995 when it was 56% -- the only other time it has been at the current level or higher -- while the 39% identifying as "pro-life" is the lowest since 1996.
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/393104/pro-choice-identificatio...
This is a lie ("In Shia Islam, abortion is "forbidden after implantation of the fertilised ovum.", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_abortion). I guess it never occurred to you why even the Sharia countries are not as extreme on abortion as Christian ones.
>Certain Sunni schools also prohibit abortion at any stage.
Obvious lie, ibid.
>Buddhist
Nope, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_abortion
>Same thing in Hinduism
Okay, so this one is not entirely wrong, just mostly wrong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism_and_abortion).
Once again: "life from conception" is a fringe view specific to Catholicism and borrowed by other extremist branches.
See page numbers 18 here
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
The idea that American “evangelical Christians” invented opposition to abortion is typical American ignorance and myopia. Various levels of opposition to abortion is the norm across the world—for pretty obvious reasons. The rights-based view of abortion is what’s actually unusual and unique to Christian and post-Christian societies.
Either way, I think if you're going to engage in some American-bashing, you should probably cite some sources to back up your claims.
It’s more illuminating to ask where the “my body my choice” view comes from. Who are the loudest voices advocating that view? It’s post-Christian white people in Anglo countries. Even in other societies that permit abortion, like Confucian China, it’s not based on this idea of an inherent “right to bodily autonomy.” It’s based on family planning or population control rationales. Even in Europe, the ECHR has repeatedly declined to recognize a general “right” to an abortion. (In European countries outside the Anglosphere, abortion is an exercise of legislative prerogative.)
Abortion-as-a-right is a fusion of Anglo ideas about “rights” of individuals against the government with Christian ideas about individualized morality. It’s rooted in a distinctive and quasi-religious view of humans as having some higher and more noble purpose beyond reproducing themselves.
You're lying again. Even the most strict sharia law countries tend not to have as extreme approach to abortion as some christian ones. Same with buddhism.
>It’s more illuminating to ask where the “my body my choice” view comes from.
Humanism - same as all the other human rights.
Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
Well, sure, there were _some_, eg both Hitler and Stalin have delegalised abortion in their countries. But I'm not sure if that's the kind of moral oracle that todays christian fundamentalists would like to remember.
There are plenty of secular arguments for flat earth. It's not about the number of arguments, but about their validity. There are no secular arguments that don't depend on logical fallacies or invalid assumptions.
>Abortion balances the life, health, and happiness of the mother against the life of the unborn fetus.
And similarly when talking about forcing someone to donate their blood, or part of liver for transplant we'd need to balance the rights of the forced donor and the rights of the prospective transplant receiver, right?
>IMO this is one of the most ethically challenging questions that we're still arguing about as a society.
It's not only not one of the challenging ones, it's not a serious question at all. Modern ethics is pretty clear on reproductive rights.
This is a false equivalency. Flat earth is a matter of facts, not ethics. Further, you are taking the least charitable interpretation of my words. Of course I meant that there are plenty of _valid_ secular arguments.
>And similarly when talking about forcing someone to donate their blood, or part of liver for transplant we'd need to balance the rights of the forced donor and the rights of the prospective transplant receiver, right?
Yes, this is a common counter-argument. I first encountered this in A Defense of Abortion in the form of the "unconscious violinist". A more whimsical version can be found in Rick and Morty's second Interdimensional Cable. A common counter-counter-argument is that this situation differs from abortion in that the mother bears partial responsibility for the creation of the fetus, and thus owes it more than she would owe another random person. This is one of the reasons people get more outraged about restriction of abortion rights in cases of rape, as the mother had no volition and thus (by this logic) owes her fetus nothing more than she would owe a stranger.
Regardless, you may find that the right of the mother to bodily autonomy outweighs the right of the fetus to life, but not everyone will weigh the situation the same. We often agree as a society that one must help others if the cost to oneself is considerably lower than the value provided to others. For example, you are obligated (in an ethical sense) to provide water to a man dying of thirst as long as you have plenty. Or perhaps (more controversially), you are obligated to jump into a cold swimming pool to save a drowning child (if you can swim). Some argue that the temporary albeit serious inconvenience to the mother outweighs the life-long value to the unborn child in a similar manner.
>It's not only not one of the challenging ones, it's not a serious question at all. Modern ethics is pretty clear on reproductive rights.
The funny thing is that each side seems to think this, and that the other side is insane, naive, or misguided for disagreeing. FWIW, I am personally pro-choice, but I also think that if you cannot understand the other side's arguments, that is a weakness of your own mental model, not a sign that they are crazy or bad arguments.
I'm happy to talk more about this, as I think it is a genuinely interesting and challenging issue that remains unresolved, unlike many things that our society argues about. Another interesting unresolved issue is the ethics of punishment - I have come to believe that government punishment is generally unethical, but that's another post.
And I've responded there are none. And you've not been able to provide any.
>Regardless, you may find that the right of the mother to bodily autonomy outweighs the right of the fetus to life, but not everyone will weigh the situation the same.
Of course, in particular people who believe woman are not proper humans. And it just so happens that this is the view of Catholic Church.
>Some argue that the temporary albeit serious inconvenience to the mother
I don't think this line requires any comment.
>The funny thing is that each side seems to think this
Again, same as with any other fallacy, like flat earth.
>if you cannot understand the other side's arguments, that is a weakness of your own mental model
If you cannot understand flat earther's arguments, that's a weakness of your own mental model? :)
FWIW, I do understand those arguments. It's just that I also understand they are stupid and evil - because they flow from ideology which is stupid and evil.
>>Some argue that the temporary albeit serious inconvenience to the mother [is outweighed by] the life-long value to the unborn child in a similar manner.
>I don't think this line requires any comment.
This is one of the secular counter-arguments to abortion rights. My apology, I misstated the direction of the "outweighed" part. A very simple and principled restatement: life is more important than liberty. I am not sure why you have chosen not to comment on the key argument in my post. Perhaps the outcome is so obvious to you that you cannot imagine another rational being who would hold the opposite view.
>Again, same as with any other fallacy, like flat earth.
Again, this is not the same kind of argument. You really seem to like to pick on flat earth, maybe because it's an easy target. Why not at least pick an ethical debate instead of a factual one? There are plenty.
>If you cannot understand flat earther's arguments, that's a weakness of your own mental model? :)
I was very curious about flat earthers, sovereign citizens, anti-vaxxers, 5G phobics, and other similar "alternative truthers" because I in fact cannot understand their arguments. The more I look into them, the more I have come to believe they are mostly afraid and feel out of control, so they seek something that explains, even if it's insane. I would in fact like to be able to simulate their mental states more accurately, but I'm not sure how to get there without the mask becoming too heavy if you will.
>FWIW, I do understand those arguments. It's just that I also understand they are stupid and evil - because they flow from ideology which is stupid and evil.
I dunno about "evil". That word has way too strong of a connotation. I'd say the typical ideology associated with pro-life people is very paternalistic. They feel that they know better than you what choices you should make. I don't appreciate that dimension of their ideology at all, but I see the same traits in a number of different circles outside of the American religious right. For example, I hold the somewhat radical idea that suicide is an extension of a person's right to self determination, but many others seem to think that they have the right to force a suicidal person to stay here against their will.
(1) the propriety of protesting abortions at all
(2) the propriety of protesting anything in a manner that seems to threaten violence
(3) the government's use of Dataminr