Secular pro-life in the news

Catholic blog CelleDoor captured a photo of our pro-life, pro-science message at the San Francisco Walk for Life.

In her coverage of the D.C. March for Life, Christianity Today author Karen Swallow Prior highlights Phil, one of our most active volunteers:

He is a young, pro-life vegan who cut his activism teeth in the anti-globalization movement. He worked for a pro-life organization for a few years, keeping his atheist views to himself, but has since “come out” as an atheist while maintaining his pro-life convictions. He says he has been warmly received at the March, where he carries a sign identifying himself as a pro-life atheist.

On the other hand, Mary E. Hunt of Religion Dispatches asks “Why don’t they just call it the Catholic March for Life?” While admitting that non-Catholics were present, she argues that it was “a Catholic demonstration that is made to appear far more generic than it is.” [Bias warning: Hunt is a pro-abortion Catholic.]

At Reason Magazine, David Harsanyi discusses the secular case for life:

[The March for Life] had me wonder how many Americans avoid an honest look at the abortion issue because of the cultural dimensions of the debate. How many Americans instinctively turn to the pro-choice camp because pro-life proponents aggravate their secular sensibilities?

As Nat Hentoff, the noted civil libertarian journalist, once remarked, when he turned pro-life, his cohorts at The Village Voice wondered when he had “converted to Catholicism—the only explanation they could think of” for his “apostasy.”

It’s unfortunate that abortion is a social issue, because it is science and reason that can turn the debate.