Archive: abortion
Abortion and thinking Americans
It is true that an unplanned pregnancy can be an embarrassment, create a severe financial strain, and cause parents (especially the mother) to drop out of school early. That does not justify, under any normal legal analysis, the taking of a life. We do not take it as a justification for homicide, for instance, if an elderly parent strains the finances or psychological balance of a household. In no situation other than abortion does an individual or group of individuals have a right to kill based upon status alone.
By Ronald Rychlak | March 3, 2011; 03:45 PM ET | Comments (5)
The right and wrong place for personal religious views
Personal religious views cannot and should not prevent a woman from having access to a legal, medical procedure. I trust that left, right, center, religious and secular all agree upon this fundamental principle of our constitution.
By Janet Edwards | March 3, 2011; 03:38 PM ET | Comments (5)
Abortion: pro-choice and pro-karma
As with any moral, ethical, personal or spiritual question, any injunctions or edicts are anathema to a Hindu. It is not that Hinduism is ambiguous in its abhorrence of abortion, but it is always put forth as a matter of choice.
By Aseem Shukla | March 3, 2011; 03:33 PM ET | Comments (5)
Common sense and common ground
To reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion, we know what works. And it is not simply moral outrage. Countries that have the lowest abortion rates in the world are those that have made contraception most easily available.
By David Gushee | March 3, 2011; 03:20 PM ET | Comments (40)
You don't have to be pro-life to be pro-medical-standards
Why wouldn't anyone be in favor of holding abortion clinics to the same medical standards as we do hospitals? We have a moral obligation to do so.
By Jim Daly | March 3, 2011; 01:18 PM ET | Comments (3)
Religion must enter this debate
All law is a result of people exercising the power they have to put in place the values they have. Of course personal and religious views enter into the picture; that is how peoples' values on both sides of any issue are formed.
By Joel Hunter | March 2, 2011; 10:30 AM ET | Comments (8)
Religion and abortion policy: The legislator's obligation
Of course religion has a role to play in the public conversation about reproductive health policy....More relevant than the question of what policy role religious institutions have is what standards policy makers should use in evaluating the positions taken by faith leaders and official denominations.
By Frances Kissling | March 2, 2011; 10:26 AM ET | Comments (3)
Pro-life community does not want to fund abortion provider
The greatest threat to Planned Parenthood is medical technology, not pro-life organizations, legislators, or religious views.
By Jordan Sekulow | March 1, 2011; 06:20 PM ET | Comments (11)
Why we need a national religious debate about abortion
No wonder the two sides can't hear each other; they're having different conversations. The first claims exclusive knowledge of God's desires; the latter sticks to the language of modernity and relinquishes God to the right wing.
By Jill Jacobs | March 1, 2011; 04:07 PM ET | Comments (13)
Keep doctors practicing medicine
Put simply: medical decisions sometimes involve ethical decisions. Ethical decisions cannot be left to amateur ethicists, such as most medical doctors. That doctors wish to do a thing, can do a thing, and even want to do a thing, does not mean they should do it.
By John Mark Reynolds | March 1, 2011; 01:11 PM ET | Comments (7)
Church, state and abortion: Don't let dogma dominate
This struggle is really nothing more than an attempt by some religious groups to use the power of the government to impose their dogma about reproduction, sexuality and the beginnings of life. It is way past time for judges and elected officials to start respecting the wall of separation between church and state.
By Barry Lynn | March 1, 2011; 12:54 PM ET | Comments (26)
Hope for middle ground
As our society continues to debate the abortion issue, we certainly don't need to wait until we reach consensus on the broader question of their morality to agree on some improvements to current practices.
By Jason Poling | March 1, 2011; 12:35 PM ET | Comments (1)
The right's war on poor women
Over the years I have come to believe that the real end game of the political and religious right is not to prevent abortion, but to control women's capacity to reproduce.
By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite | March 1, 2011; 10:20 AM ET | Comments (22)
No place for religion in public policy
Too few voices argue that since the capacity for personhood does not exist until the infant brain begins some internal wiring well after birth, the only justifications for imagining that abortion is murder flow solely from personal metaphysics or religious doctrine.
By Tom Flynn | March 1, 2011; 09:45 AM ET | Comments (16)
Opposite games by politicians
We elect American politicians to uphold our secular Constitution and the laws of the land, including the legal right to abortion. Politicians have the right to worship the god of their choice, but they have no right to restrict the freedom of those who don't share their religious beliefs. That's the opposite of the religious freedom we are all guaranteed.
By Herb Silverman | March 1, 2011; 09:25 AM ET | Comments (16)
Defund family planning? Is that pro-life?
Family planning mitigates the need for abortion. Is this really a way to treat human life as sacred?
By Debra W. Haffner | February 16, 2011; 02:23 PM ET | Comments (41)
A woman's sacred right to choose
The core issue, for me for the pro-choice movement, is this: Who gets to decide what goes on inside a woman's body?
By Starhawk | May 21, 2010; 03:21 PM ET | Comments (8)