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Abortion is an Atheist issue. A great blog from FFRF. Some takeaways:
• Atheists don’t believe in the religious concept of “ensoulment,” which much of the anti-abortion movement is predicated on, or the idea that pregnancies and what happens to them are “God’s will.”
• Abortion is an extremely safe procedure. A major study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology found the major complication rate to be extremely low.
• In fact, researchers found that women are 14 times more likely to die during or after childbirth than to complications from an abortion.
• Dr. Ned Calonge, the co-chair of the committee that wrote a report for National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, explained that state restrictions and bans on abortion are not based in science. Furthermore, Dr. Hal Lawrence, the CEO of the American College of Obestricians and Gynecologists, an organization with nearly 60,000 members, stated that any claims about abortion restrictions protecting women’s health “have been totally debunked” and that “delaying and making people wait and go through hoops of unnecessary, extra procedures does not improve the safety — and, actually, by having them delay can actually worsen the safety.”
”Medication abortion is safer than Tylenol and Viagra, yet it is heavily and unnecessarily regulated.”
• The Turnaway Study, the first rigorous examination of the impact of receiving versus being denied an abortion, found that abortion restrictions significantly increase the likelihood that women will live in poverty, stay in abusive relationships and experience serious health problems as a result of the pregnancy and childbirth.
• More than 800 scientists and scientific organizations affirm that abortion access is important reproductive health care.
• An analysis by researchers found that at least 10 categories of abortion restrictions have no rigorous scientific basis.
• Twenty-five medical groups, including the American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and The Society of Family Planning, filed an amicus brief opposing the abortion restrictions in question in the U.S. Supreme Court’s hearing of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
• Groups such as the United Nations, Amnesty International and the World Health Organization affirm that abortion is a human right.
• Legal restrictions do not reduce abortions, but lead to unsafe abortions and deaths. The World Health Organization estimates that 39,000 women die each year because of unsafe abortions due to restrictive legislation.
"There is no organized opposition to abortion except for religious interests. Almost three-fourths of white evangelical Protestants are firmly anti-abortion. And most Crisis Pregnancy Centers, or fake clinics that use tax dollars to dissuade women from abortion, are Christian-based."
[freethoughtnow.org]

JackPedigo 9 May 18
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5 comments

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2

Questions that do not matter:

  1. When does life "begin"?
  2. Is consent to sex consent to pregnancy?
  3. Does it have a beating heart?
  4. Is it distinct from its mother?
  5. Can it survive outside the uterus?
  6. Is a fetus a "person"?
  7. Does it have a future?
  8. Is abortion "murder"?

Question that does matter:

  1. Does the thing in the uterus ever have a right to use the uterus against the will of the person with the uterus?

Answer: No. I am alive. I am a product of consensual sex. I have a beating heart. I am distinct from my mother. I can survive outside a uterus. I am a person. I have a future. But I do not have a right to use my mother’s or father’s body against their will even if my life depends on it. I don’t even have this right to their dead corpses. If I don’t have this right then neither does a fetus.

“Murder” is the name of a specific type of criminal action with conditions defined by elected legislators in a jurisdiction, not linguists or clergy. The conditions defining murder are only as sound as the democracy in which these legislators have been elected. The democracy of the United States ranks 36 among world nations. Murder is illegal and abortion is legal in all of the more democratic nations. The majority of Americans support Roe.

More than half of all embryos die naturally. If an embryo really does have the same legal status, rights, and value as a toddler, then why are we not spending trillions of dollars to reduce the number of embryos that die naturally every year? Surely we would do so if the same number of toddlers were dying naturally every year.

Brilliant.

I think I have to steal this. Bravo.

Unfortunately, the types that want to upend all the items you mentioned are not known for their sense of reasoning and asking pertinent questions.

1

The author gives a good overview of key points.

By the way, she states, "I want to affirm that atheists and other freethinkers are not monoliths. Just because we reject religion, does not mean that we hold the same political ideologies, lifestyles, careers, goals, food preferences, etc. In other words, atheists are multidimensional people. And yes, that can mean that an atheist can be against abortion."

As abortion is mostly a religious issue most atheist (some 95%) support abortions.

2

FYI, Abortion is an issue that is NOT only a concern of Atheists BUT every woman of child bearing age and every young girl/young woman about to enter child bearing age whether she be Atheist, Religious, Black, White, Yellow or whatever, so long as she is a WOMAN it concerns her and should NOT be under control of Religions or the State.

3

Nobody can dictate what 'atheists don't believe' beyond the existence of gods.

An atheist that believes in souls does seem quite odd though.

7

Actually, I think to the extent abortion is an issue, it's a religious issue. It's believers in a mythical sky daddy, with their crazy notions of "ensoulment" who are sticking their noses into what is essentially a private matter.

That was the object of the posting. Why can't the court see this as it really is and determine to criminalize Roe-Wade is against the first amendment? A rhetorical question as we all know the answer.

If anybody claims that souls exist that immediately tells me that they are mentally defective.

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