Abortion Is And Is Not A Religious Issue

It is surprising to hear people say, as the New York Times’ Elizabeth Dias reported, that the proposition “Life begins at conception” is a religious belief. It is true that the Catholic Church, many other Christian churches, and many Christian and non-Christian congregations state publicly that life begins at conception in order to argue that elective abortion should be illegal.

But no religious authority ever reasoned to the conclusion that life begins at conception based on divine revelation or any set of religious teachings. In fact, religious authorities got the question wrong in the past when they followed the widely accepted but underdeveloped science of their day, even when also following well-reasoned philosophy. In a famous example, … (continue reading at the National Catholic Register. Thank you NCR.)