As an Atheist I often wonder if that leaves me at a disadvantage to understand how people especially religious people feel about abortion. Not believing in a god does not make life any less precious to me in fact it makes life even more precious because I know this is the only life I get and this is the only opportunity I have to enjoy my life and the lives of others.
Abortion is an Atheist issue and I will tell you why. It is because we are free thinkers that make us perhaps the most qualified to speak about the abortion issue. We have no religious beliefs about Abortion because we base our decisions on facts and reasons, nothing more and nothing less.
The Atheist movement represents something else; we represent an advocacy for non-believers. We do tend to focus on the obvious issues-forced prayer sessions in schools and workplaces, religious monuments built with public money and so on.
The Atheist movement has a much broader movement we want to bring to light every area of life that religious organizations seek to control: sex, marriage and childbearing a woman’s right to choose.
Your religious beliefs dictate your abortion politics. A 2009 report by the Pew Research Center sheds some light:
Among those who said religious beliefs had the most influence on their thinking, 82% said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. 82% of those who cited education as their primary influence said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.**
Atheists or people with no religious affiliations support abortion rights. Also there is a strong positive relationship between education level and support for abortion rights. Even stronger is the negative correlation between church attendance and support for abortion rights.
These results echo the findings of a 2002 Gallup review:
Abortion is often thought of as a women’s issue, but polling data suggest, to the contrary, that the depth of one’s religious beliefs, not gender, is what drives attitudes on abortion. The overwhelming majority of people who say religion is very important in their lives believe abortion should either be illegal or legal in only a few circumstances. Similarly, most people who say religion is not very important in their lives believe abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances. Gallup finds some differences in abortion attitudes according to respondents’ age, education level, region of the country, political ideology and political party preference, but these patterns largely overlap with the underlying religiosity of these groups.
If we really believe that we have a right to live our lives free from the control of religious organizations and the whims of their adherents, surely we can agree that pregnant women have the same right.
I like your free spirit and would like to listen to more of what you have to say. I think you should reduce your point size a bit, it will make it easier to track down the page.
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