“Abortion is a religious issue. People should stop trying to force their private beliefs on others.”
Or so the tired argument goes. Well, it couldn’t be more wrong.
Take a look at the fight to end slavery.
It was an English politician named William Wilberforce who was instrumental in passing the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which ended slavery in the British Empire. He did so for largely religious motivations, and he used religious justifications. No one today would look at slavery and say, “That’s purely a religious issue.”
Even in our own country, we see that one of the most prominent leaders of the civil rights movement was a Baptist preacher, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. None of us would say, “Oh, civil rights? That’s just religious people forcing their faith on others.” Rather, faith gives people the courage to stand up for things that reason tells them are right.
To be brief, AU Students for Life believes that science shows that the unborn child is a unique, living human being, and that reason shows there is no essential difference between an embryo and an 18-year-old that makes it okay to kill the unborn child but not the 18-year- old.
Regardless of whether or not you believe abortion can be compared to slavery or civil rights, the main point stands: If we can articulate the reasonableness of the pro-life position, then it is absurd to say that opposing abortion is merely a private faith conviction which has no place in the public square.
This is not a purely religious matter. Being pro-life does not mean forcing an article of faith on non-believers; it means working to promote a view of the dignity of the human person based on reason.
Bill Re
President, AU Students for Life
