5 September 2021
I do not speak for “pro-life atheists,” because I am not all of them. I speak for me, a pro-life atheist, and I believe that abortion is homicide, because it extinguishes a genetically distinct human organism. Once the fetus develops a functioning nervous system, and is capable of feeling pain, it is also torture. It isn’t necessarily “murder,” as some homicides are justified, and some are accidents, but they are all homicides if human organisms die.
I do not speak for “pro-choice atheists,” because I am not all of them. I speak for me, and I understand that in medicine and in physiology, there is no such thing as a risk-free procedure nor a risk-free condition. When it comes to statistical mortality, two things are certain: pregnancy kills women and abortion kills women. I believe that there is ONE person in each scenario who is most qualified to evaluate those risks and to choose which to reject or to embrace, and it isn’t her doctor, her parents, her sweetie, or her god.
And of course, as an anarchist, I also don’t believe that it is the state.
(For those wishing to turn up the angst, for “pro-choice” you may substitute “baby killer” and for “pro-life” you may substitute “fetal fetishist.” I know that many on both sides of this issue are much more passionate than I am, and also that “th’Irish nivver let agrrreement get in th’way of a gud fi’t!”)