I don’t think an atheist would say this. There are many lower-level philosophical questions about the nature of people, and factual biological issues that would weigh on whether or not this is a good choice. It doesn’t make sense to just assert it.

My objection was that it’s beyond criticism, not merely that it’s associated with religion.

I don’t think you’ve been misunderstood. I think Julian, Micha, and I are very familiar with the logical structure of the prohibitionist arguments.

And, I don’t think Julian meant that all opponents of legalized abortions were solely motivated by punitive intent. It seems that he meant, mainly, that their actions have a punitive effect.

As for the “end of discussion”, I think the pro-choice people are right that there’s no need for further discussion if the fetus is not a rights-bearing person. But, the prohibitionist has a greater burden. He must show not only that it’s a rights-bearing person, but also that there’s a duty to endure the pregnancy that should be legally enforced.

Clearly, we’ll not resolved all related issues in this comment thread. So, I’ll sign off of it now. It’s been fun, and I hope more has been clarified than has been obscured.

if the choice of conception as the demarcation point for rights-bearing is grounded in religious authority and beyond the reach of criticism, then it is irrational.

In any rational discourse, there must necessarily be first principles — ideas that are the foundation, rather than the result, of our reasoning. Truths which are held to be self-evident, if you will. Every rational person has such first principles, whether or not he is “religious.”

First principles are, in a sense, non-rational because they are not the result of reasoning. But they are hardly irrational, because rational discourse depends on them. The fact that the ideas which I take as first principles are informed to some extent by my religious beliefs does not ipso facto make those ideas “irrational.”

If I were an atheist, but nonetheless believed that human personhood comes into being at conception, would you still regard that belief as irrational? or is any association with religious belief intrinsically irrational?

In any case I think you seriously overestimate the extent to which the pro-life position is based on arbitrary religious dogma. The intimate connection between sexuality, procreation, and child-rearing (where “sexuality” is understood not only as the sexual act itself, but the whole complex of physical, emotional, and psychological interactions that are involved in a sexual bond between a man and a woman) is easily observed empirically. People of every religious faith, or of none, have experienced this and observed it throughout human history. The observation that the proper ends of human sexuality include not only pleasure but also the maintenance and strengthening of the emotional bonds between a man and a woman as well as the procreation of children, is hardly an exclusively religious one.

Given that, it is not unreasonable to expect a man and a woman to be prepared to accept responsibility for any child which may result from their union. Nor to expect them not to evade that responsibility by killing the child.

Why assume that you’re not understood, rather than considered profoundly mistaken?

I don’t “assume” that I have not been understood. When my position is attributed not to reverence for the personhood of the unborn, but to hostility to the pregnant woman, I know that I have been misunderstood.

I don’t think the point of personhood ends the discussion … there’s a possiblity that the fetus could be a person and that it might still be a mistake to prohibit abortion …

I don’t necessarily disagree with this. The difficulty is that the blanket denial of personhood by most on the pro-choice side is taken to “end the discussion.” If we could agree that the unborn child is a human person deserving of respect and protection, we could then proceed to a discussion of how to balance the interests of the child and those of the mother, and we might arrive at a regime that is respectful of both — one that is more restrictive than what we have now, but well short of a blanket prohibition. If the child is a human person, then the presumption would have to be in favour of its rights, with the burden of proof on those who would deny that right in someone else’s interest. That would be far cry from the current legal regime, which is based on the denial of the personhood of the unborn.

Surely it is not irrational to believe that an unborn human being is in fact a human person.

Well, if the choice of conception as the demarcation point for rights-bearing is grounded in religious authority and beyond the reach of criticism, then it is irrational. Adding “Surely” doesn’t help with this.

Also, as I’ve indicated before, I don’t think the point of personhood ends the discussion. The prohibitionists also rely on their assertion that having sex confers parental responsibilities of the woman toward the fetus, and that these responsibilities include undergoing the full term of the pregnancy.

Many of us think that the disapproval of recreational sex helps to motivate people to think that this conclusion is obvious. There’s a lack of sympathy for the position that people can have sex without commiting to the support of the potential fetus. Instead, we hear that these obligations are a natural consequence, and that “She should have thought of that before having sex!”

Why can pro-choicers not understand the logical structure of our position?

Why assume that you’re not understood, rather than considered profoundly mistaken? Do you feel impelled to make unfounded assumptions about what’s going on in the minds of your opponents?

By the way, I too am “pro-life” in the sense that I prefer the birth outcome to the abortion outcome in the vast majority of cases. I think that having another child in the world, if there are people who are willing and able to raise him well, is a wonderful thing. And, I hope that we will soon have cultural attitudes and voluntary institutions that make the decision to carry the pregnancy to term much easier.

But, I also think that legal prohibition is a terrible mistake. It imposes state coercion into an extremely private decision. One that I don’t think involves either murder or the abrogation of duties that should be legally enforced.

Are you sure that you’ve completely understood the logical structure of my position? Your final assertions bring that into question.

And, forgive me but I view an unwillingness to acknowledge that there’s a possiblity that the fetus could be a person and that it might still be a mistake to prohibit abortion as, well, irrational. And, let’s not forget harmful.

Are they not aware that correlation is not causation? and that to establish causation other evidence must be brought to bear besides simple correlation?

it’s also hard to not form those kinds of theories about what’s motivating people …

Perhaps the first step in determining what motivates someone is to ask him; and if his answer is sufficient to explain the phenomonon, Ockham’s razor tells us that we need go no further. The attribution of bad motives, where they have no explanatory power and are unsupported by any evidence beyond simple correlation, is simply a form of ad hominem argument.

… who insist on a policy one judges to be irrational and harmful

Surely it is not irrational to believe that an unborn human being is in fact a human person. You may think that belief is mistaken, but that does not make it irrational. And the entire pro-life position follows (quite rationally) from that premise. So I do not see where the pro-life stance is “irrational.”

Similarly, those who are pro-choice believe that human personhood (with all the respect, rights, and protections it requires) comes into being at birth or at some other time, rather than at conception. This is a belief with which I disagree, but I cannot and do not claim that it is irrational. And the entire pro-choice position follows (quite rationally) from this belief. If the foetus is not a human person, then the rights of the one in the situation who is a human person (viz. the pregnant woman) are clearly paramount.

If I, as a pro-lifer, can understand the logical structure of the pro-choice position, why can pro-choicers not understand the logical structure of our position? It is abundantly clear that the abortion controversy is a conflict of first principles: one side believes, foundationally, in the personhood of the child from the moment of conception; the other side believes, just as foundationally, that such personhood does not exist. Importing other premises into the argument (such as the purported “punitive intent”) serves only to muddy the waters.

My point is just that I understand why some might use the word punish, because they see a correlation between religion-inspired prudery and lifestyle condemnation and religion-inspired rejection of abortion rights.

I don’t think many people believe they’re being punitive, and I don’t think it’s useful to accuse people of having bad motives. It might be wrong, and it’s unlikely to be helpful even if it’s right.

But, it’s also hard to not form those kinds of theories about what’s motivating people who insist on a policy one judges to be irrational and harmful.

I have rarely seen a sentence so highly qualified as your third paragraph — so much so that it is perhaps impossible to disagree with it. Especially since the actual subject of the sentence is the state of your belief. Who could deny that you “have come to believe” what you do, in fact, believe?

Whether that belief has any basis in fact is another matter altogether. But even there it would be hard to deny that there could be “some” who “might” be affected (in some unspecified way) by their views on sexual behavior.

Perhaps you are engaging in rhetorical understatement, but what you wrote is a far cry from the robust claim that an aggressive sexual prudery is the sole engine of the pro-life movement.

But, Julian’s second comment implied that he was considering the possibility of it being punitive in effect rather than purely in intent. So, we’re partially arguing about a symantic disagreement.

It also seems to be true that Julian, Micha, and I have come to believe that at least some of those who oppose abortion, at least partially, might be affected by their disapproval of the sexual behavior itself and this makes it easier for them to coerce pregnant women.

Perhaps you’ve never encountered anyone who gave you reason to suspect this, but I certainly have.

I have to concur with some of the pro-lifers in this comments section–to call abortion prohibition a “punishment” is effectively an ad hominem argument that presumes the worst of pro-lifers’ beliefs: that pro-lifers are more interested in retribution against the mother than in protecting the unborn child. Based on my encounters with pro-lifers, I’ve seen nothing to support that view.

I would say that it also depends on whether there is a parental responsibility between the mother and the fetus, and that this includes the obligation to carry the pregnancy to term.

Just as you would exclude the case of rape, many would deny that having voluntary sex implies a contract with the potential fetus that one accepts such a commitment.

If fetuses DO roughly share the moral status of babies, then requiring expectant mothers to carry to term is no more a “punishment” than imposing child support costs on a divorcing parent. In both cases, the legal burden is a responsibility to the child that’s inherent in parenthood, not a punishment. (The one possible exception I can see is pregnancy due to rape

FWIW, I support abortion rights.