Strange Bedfellows: Atheists Against Abortion

WASHINGTON, DC, Mar 30 – The Ukraine war, runaway inflation, and the what-ifs of Communist China dominate the news these days. It has served to obscure the fact that it is as likely as it has ever been that the Supreme Court will soon argue the fate of Roe vs. Wade. The Court is not expected to overturn its 1973 ruling that legalized abortion on demand. But it just might make it somewhat more difficult for professional abortionists to take the lives of unborn babies.

Meanwhile, two states – Maryland and California – are seeking to take abortion to a new, hideously evil level. In both states, legislation has recently been introduced that would offer abortion seekers new “freedom,” perhaps even the choice to literally kill a baby that is “accidentally” born after an attempted abortion.

Columnist Brian Griffiths, in an article he wrote for the Capital Gazette, says the Maryland bill “in addition to protecting the grotesque act of abortion, would also effectively legalize infanticide in Maryland. It handcuffs police from investigating infant deaths, possibly for infants up to four weeks after birth.” 

Attorney Wesley J. Smith, in an article he wrote for the National Review,  says the bill in the California Legislature “is even worse than the Maryland legislation.”  Smith ends his article by pointing out that, “One blue-state bill that would allow a born baby to be neglected to death might be an anomaly. A second that does that — and perhaps could be interpreted to allow infanticide, also — is a pattern. The cultural Left is blazing new grounds of depravity.”

In a compelling Opinion article published in Newsweek, Lila Rose, founder and president of the human rights nonprofit Live Action, and Jena Powell, the youngest member of the Ohio House of Representatives, point out that each and every day American abortionists legally murder 2,363 “children.”

As Powell and Rose, point out in their article, “Some argue that no one dies in an abortion. They say the fetus or embryo is merely a ‘potential life.’  Yet the science is clear: at the moment of fertilization, a wholly new and genetically distinct human being is created. Since Roe v. Wade was decided almost 50 years ago by seven men, our society’s technological prowess and scientific knowledge have progressed dramatically. These scientific advances illustrate what many have always known to be true: every abortion ends the life of an innocent human being.”  They note that the Texas “Heartbeat Act” has saved the lives of thousands of babies and cite a survey that shows the law reduced the number of abortions in that state by more than 50%.

More and more states across the nation have been seeking to enact anti-abortion laws, similar to the Heartbeat Act in recent years. Last year 19 states passed 108 restrictive abortion laws, establishing a trend that continues this year. According to BuzzFeedNews, thus far, “in 2022 alone, 39 state legislatures have filed more than 230 bills restricting abortion access, a significantly high number. While not all of them will become law, more are likely to than ever before, throwing organizations that help people access abortions into chaos.” 

It would appear that there is a grassroots anti-abortion movement in the U.S. that is gaining momentum across the country. It may not abolish the practice, but it is slowing it down. The Washington Post recently reported that “antiabortion legislators across the country are newly energized, passing bills that could reshape the abortion landscape in the United States by the end of the summer.”

Attorney Kelsey Hazzard saw it coming some time ago when she penned an article for America Magazine. Her take was that “The abortion industry would have you believe that people like me do not exist. They would have you believe that the pro-life movement is almost exclusively old white men, with a few pearl-clutching church ladies thrown in. This characterization is insulting to both young and old. The older pro-life leaders of today are the pioneering young adult activists of the 1970s, who courageously dissented from Roe v. Wade. And they have recruited new generations of pro-lifers to follow in their footsteps; millennials in the movement call ourselves the ‘pro-life generation.” 

Kelsey is the president of the anti-abortion organization Secular Pro-Life. She’s also an atheist. She may not believe in God, but she believes that the unborn are nonetheless human beings that merit protection. She’s not alone. Each year the March for Life in Washington D.C. attracts a goodly number of anti-abortion activists. This year, the event took place on January 21 with tens of thousands of pro-life activists in attendance. Some estimates of the numbers of attendees were as high as 150,000, including significant numbers of non-religious participants – including atheists. And why not? To be sure, there are enough atheists in the anti-abortion movement that they could probably form a new club. With all due respect for the American Automobile Association, they might call themselves the AAA, Atheists Against Abortion.         

Philip Pillari is a political science and philosophy student at a college in New York State, who describes himself as an “agnostic atheist.”  And according to Pillari, “there are so many different secular philosophies that you can use to justify being pro-life. You do not need to believe in a Judeo-Christian God in order to be pro-life.”  In other words, whether you believe in God or not, is not the issue. It’s about having respect for life – including the life of an unborn child.

Take the case of Caleb and Abigail Ostrom in Chatsworth, CA. The Epoch Times featured their story recently. When Abigail was pregnant doctors found that her unborn child was ill with a life-threatening disease called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH) and offered to perform an abortion. Abigail declined. Their son, Theodore, was born in early April 2020 – just as the COVID-19 outbreak was getting started. Shortly thereafter, he underwent a successful operation. 

A year later, doctors were able to give him a clean bill of health and, as Abigail put it, “Theodore’s journey has really shown me that every life is a precious gift, not to be taken for granted or dismissed.”