atheists and abortions

[nohorn]

What is the general view that atheists have on abortions? Would they approve or disapprove? Just wondering.

[mibn2cweus]

Me thinks me smells a fish . . .

In the broadest context, atheist differentiates only from a belief in any god. In general no view regarding abortion is or should be automatically implied by atheism . . . except perhaps the lack of an erroneous one.


http://en.wikipedia.o...i/Red_herring_(idiom)

[Ankou]

i don't like the idea of it, and the potential for misuse, but a woman has/should have the right to choose or to be counselled without disparagement.

[Sandy-Wroe]

If athiests believe that this life is all we have, then you'd think they would be strongly against abortions.
I could never understand why Christians are so strongly anti. If they believe that the foetus has a soul, then, in their view, it would go straight to heaven. It would have missed all the opportunities to sin and condemn its soul to eternal hellfire.

[jake-the-peg]

It's not necesarilly a religious argument, and I really don't think it's as easy as approve or disapprove

I guess it really revolves about when you think a human being becomes a human being and not just a bunch of cells.

A lot of religions took a view on this early on before much science was about and declared that a human life begins at conception.

This position has the advantage of avoiding the problem of deciding that it's ok at one point in time but not ok a few seconds later based on an aparently arbitary deadline. However with the number of fertillised eggs that fail to attach this gets you into the position where as Germaine Greer put it "women should be saying Hail Marys over their used sanatary towels" ( sorry if that's a bit strong)

In the UK our deadline is roughly based about a point of time at which an embryo could be viable but that viability gets earlier all the time. I myself have twin nephews born just a couple of weeks after that time.

In principle that seems to me as good a criteria although think that perhaps the deadlines may need re-examining.

I'm a little uneasy about extended deadlines in cases of birth defects or rape or other "extenuating circumstances" but I'm still open to persuasion on the matter

[chakka35]

mib has said everything necessary. Why should atheists have a special view on colour blindness, the Daily Mail, the 2012 Olympics, runner beans, GM crops or ..er...abortion?

[ll_billym]

Of course the answers above are correct and one should not infer any other views onto an individual purely because of their non-belief in god but I would say that taken as a group, atheists will tend towards more liberal views on the right to abortion, stem cell research and homosexuality are some that spring to mind. Possibly not runner beans though.

I am not saying that any atheism causes, or is caused by, any other views but I think in broad terms this will be the case. No numbers to back it up though unfortunately, just my own experience.