We Asked, You Answered: Why Atheists Care About Preborn Lives

We posed this question to our followers on social media:

You’re a pro-life atheist. A pro-life Christian says “I’m glad you’re pro-life, although I can’t imagine why an atheist would care.” How do you respond?

The post blew up, with hundreds of responses. Here are just a few of our favorites, in no particular order.

Matt L.: “Try to imagine harder.”

Sophie T.: That you don’t need God to tell you to value human life because you’re a human being, and of course that your conviction is rooted in science.

Ray A.: I am an atheist who used to be a five point Calvinist. As such, I would say, “Just because we are atheist doesn’t mean we don’t have the same sort of moral compass that the authors of the Bible presupposed.”

McKenzie D.: You don’t have to be religious to know and discover rights from wrongs and have morals. And being pro-life is not a religious stance. It’s a morally human stance.

Stacy S.: I’d keep in mind that, unfortunately, theists are typically taught that atheists hate (as opposed to don’t believe in) God because they want to sin. I’d ask first why they’d wonder why I’d care, and then I’d try to take the opportunity to open their minds.

Nick R.: Four undeniable facts. (1) The preborn are human. (2) The preborn are alive. (3) Abortion is violence. (4) Abortion is happening on an astronomical scale. That’s why I care. The real question why WOULDN’T you?

Jae V.: Not killing people is a cause all people should get behind.

Mary T.: As an atheist I feel that life is even more precious than I had felt as a religious person. This is the only shot at life we have. There is no second chance.

Melissa B.: There’s no shiny happy heaven and this is all we get. That’s all the more reason not to end another human’s life.

Melody S.: So much to unpack here but I’ll just answer with a question. I’d say, “Why do you need to believe in the existence of heaven in order to NOT want to… kill…?”

Caolan M.: That as humans, we don’t get to pick an arbitrary line in the sand and call it “not alive” or “not human” just because it is inconvenient. We’ve been down that path many times as a species and it is not until afterwards we look back and realize what horror we had committed, or worse, watched happen and didn’t intervene.

Monte H.: Does somebody question an atheist who is against an innocent newborn, infant, toddler, child, adolescent, or adult being intentionally killed? Of course, the answer is no, so an atheist is still against killing but now they are talking about a human in the different location of a womb.