[Today’s post by Prayson Daniel is part of Secular Pro-Life’s paid blogging program.] Tracking Baruch Brody’s view, brain-life theorists claim that in order to be fully human, a being must possess properties “such that their loss would mean the going out of existence (the death) of a human being” (Brody 1975, 102). The property of […]
[Today’s post by guest author Prayson Daniel is part of our paid blogging program.] Is it possible to make a case for the prima facie wrongness of killing a human foetus that does not depend on theological premises? In 1989 atheist philosopher Donald Marquis introduced a philosophical case for immorality of abortion that neither depended […]
I’m taking a brief break from my current series of articles on Thomson’s Defense of Abortion. Currently in Tasmania, lawmakers are considering decriminalizing abortion. I was asked to compose a letter making as strong a case as possible for the pro-life position and send it to the lawmakers, hopefully causing them to think twice about […]
Some religious people suggest you can’t have morality without God, and therefore atheists have no reason to act morally. Some atheists respond by saying we shouldn’t need the threat of eternal damnation to inspire us to act decently. As an agnostic, I don’t see why a belief in God is necessary in order to want […]
In my previous article on Personhood, I explained that what makes us “persons” (if you must use the term) is our inherent nature as rational, moral agents. While I tend not to focus on personhood arguments unless the topic is broached by the other person, I can only see one reason for disqualifying the preborn […]
It’s an uncontroversial fact of science that the preborn conceived of a human male and human female are human beings (biologically) from fertilization. But does this mean that just because they’re human beings we can’t kill them? There are times when it’s almost universally accepted that it’s acceptable to kill a human being, such as […]
In my previous article, I examined the argument against abortion that I consider to be the strongest, the Substance View. This argument, by philosopher Don Marquis, is also a very strong argument and, when used in tandem with the Substance View, offers a very powerful cumulative case against abortion.This argument comes from Marquis’ 1989 article […]
[Today’s post is re-posted from “Yeah, but…“] There are many important factors in the abortion debate. I try to weigh all factors in forming my perspective. I am pro-life, but I don’t pick the side lightly. It seems the only options are restricting a woman’s control over her body or allowing the unrestricted killing of […]
Recently Secular Pro-Life participated in an abortion debate at the Texas FreeThought Convention. Pro-life atheist Kristine Kruszelnicki and pro-choice atheist Matt Dillahunty presented their sides, questioned each other, and then answered questions from the crowd. You can watch the entire debate here. I’m pro-life, and I’d like to say the pro-life side dominated the debate, but that […]
In the never-ending debates over what it means to be a “person” (as distinct from a human being) I’ve seen many people claim that you cannot be a person unless you are viable, i.e. a fetus is not a person until the fetus can live outside the mother’s body. The first counterargument I usually hear […]
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