Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Rejecting Abortion Using Obama’s Argument


"It's unfortunate, but America now has the most pro-abortion president in the nation's history. He has pledged to protect abortion rights and has wasted no time in advancing its cause. On Friday, January 23, Barack Obama rescinded the Mexico City Policy -- and with that action forced American taxpayers to fund the innocent slaughter of children all over the world. But that's not all; in his campaign he promised to do more. He wants to pursue and sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act -- legislation that would essentially remove all state-level restrictions on abortion. And he wants to lift the ban on state-supported embryonic stem-cell research. Interestingly, when presidential candidate Obama gave his famous "Call to Renewal" speech, he said: "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all." Incidentally, this same principle is reiterated under "Faith" on the White House website.

Although all morality is essentially based in religion and certainly not devoid of reason, suppose God or religion were left out of the picture. Suppose a completely secular approach to abortion was made only "amenable to reason" -- an approach that seeks to show that abortion "violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all," just as the president insists. Would the argument against abortion be sufficiently strong? The answer to that question is an unequivocal, "yes!"

In his book Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, Randy Alcorn notes a number of completely secular arguments for why abortion should be prohibited by law..."



No comments: