One common pro-abortion argument is that pro-lifers are pushing a religious agenda in their opposition to abortion. These advocates often use slogans like “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries,” and “Pray to end abortion,” to demonstrate the idea that only religious people are pro-life. Monica Snyder, director of Secular Pro-Life, turns that argument on its head and explains that opposing abortion has nothing to do with religion.
“The belief that abortion is wrong is not exclusive to the Bible — or to any one worldview, theistic, secular or otherwise,” Snyder says in Live Action’s latest Pro-Life Replies video. “I am an atheist and I oppose abortion.”
Snyder breaks down the central argument against abortion, which, she points out, has nothing do to with religion: It’s wrong to kill innocent human beings. Abortion kills innocent human beings; therefore, abortion is wrong.
Snyder explains that the belief that it is wrong to kill innocent humans is the most fundamental moral truth embraced by people around the world and throughout history. She points out that when she talks about morality, she is not speaking of a religious doctrine, but instead of a rational standard by which actions are judged as beneficial or harmful.
She then emphasizes that abortion is killing, and always results in the death of a living human. “There is no abortion method that doesn’t involve actively killing someone,” she says.
Snyder also stresses that though some people claim that the statement that a new human life begins at conception is a religious belief, it’s actually a biological fact noted in any embryology textbook. Others claim that the preborn child is not yet a person, but Snyder says the arbitrary distinction they are trying to make between humanity and personhood is just an excuse to commit violence against certain groups of human beings. This poor excuse has been used throughout history to justify countless atrocities — and now, it’s being used to justify abortion.
“The reality is, if you are a human being, you are a person… We all have a right to life,” Snyder says. “No religion required.”
