Abortion
It's the law (for the moment)
It is reasonable to declare that a woman should not control the body of her child just as no one, or government, should tell a woman what to do with her body. We do not control much in our short lives, but surely, we should have authority over our own bodies and existence.
However, religious miss-thinking is once again the culprit behind, unreasonable, draconian thinking, and laws. Religious miss-thinking, which is based on popular stories and myth, clouds our reason when it comes to control over our bodies. Right-To-Life proponents would argue that the government should, and indeed must, intervene in a woman's authority over her body. This is a group of people that, in general, advocate for less government regulation on most other issues. This highlights how disingenuous the conservatives of this world are. If it suits them they are more than willing to advocate for authoritarian laws.
Here is the difference between an unborn child in the first trimester of pregnancy and its mother:
It all boils down to whether you believe in the fiction of religion or chains of evidence collected via observable, repeatable, and measurable tests. In the popular view, based on the fiction of religion, when a zygote (a collection of human cells) first begins replication, according to religious believers, god miraculously places a newly formed soul in this mess of cells.
According to observable, repeatable, and measurable tests, and not 2,000 year old desert scribblings, there is no such thing as a soul. What makes us who we are is three things: physiology, sociology, and psychology. Our physiology and sociology (life experience) combine to produce our unique psychology. This is done slowly as our nervous systems form over time. So, we are not souls, but rather a complex tree of nerves and synapses that grow over a long period of time, collecting and storing our life experiences and memories.
The only observable, repeatable, and measurable evidence we have supports this view: Electrical brain activity is first detected between the fifth and sixth week of gestation in the human zygote. It is considered primitive neural activity rather than the beginning of conscious thought. Synapses begin forming at 17 weeks, and begin to multiply quickly at week 28 until 3 to 4 months after birth.
What evidence do Right-To-Life proponents have that, a god places a soul in a zygote? Well there is their 2,000 year old desert scribblings. These scribblings are claimed to have been written by a god, but the only “empirical” evidence we have of this is, the scribblings themselves. Not only is a story like this highly dubious evidence, but its claim that it was written by a god is circular and self-serving at best.
In terms of the probability of a truth being true. The notion that a god places a soul in a collection of human cells is highly improbable. On the other hand, it is highly probable that we are who we are based on: Our physiology and sociology combining to produce our unique psychology.
So, if you hold to the mythical, but widely held view that souls exist then terminating a zygote would seem wrong. But observable, repeatable, and measurable evidence do not support the notion of a soul. These empirical tests do support the idea of physiology and sociology combining to produce our unique psychology, held within a growing and ever changing human nervous system.
Vita Mors
Myth is based on stories, facts are based on observable, repeatable, and measurable evidence.
Please give your kids a chance to see the world without the miss-thinking of religion. Let them make up their own minds. Their personal freedom, and yours, is at stake.