Actually, the article raised valid ethical issues.

Those who want to have abortions can have abortions, I have no problem with it, nor with the use of embryos for research and medicine, but:

1. Is it right for those who oppose abortions to be forced to participate in abortions through their tax money?

2. Is it right for those who oppose abortions to have products-of-abortion inserted into their babies, or to be otherwise made to "benefit" from such products without their knowledge or consent?

My answer for both is 'NO'.

yep Jews are not people acording to the Nazis and baby parts are waste according to the fundie secularist. How charming. Obviously totally ignorant to science or should I say wilfully ignorant.

Yuyutsu "1. Is it right for those who oppose abortions to be forced to participate in abortions through their tax money?"

For atheists like me, is it right to force me to pay taxes towards churches? I may not like it, but I have no choice, just like everyone else in the tax system. I am assuming you don't pay tax at all then? If you do, are you sure it is going towards only those things you believe in? Of course not.

"2. Is it right for those who oppose abortions to have products-of-abortion inserted into their babies, or to be otherwise made to "benefit" from such products without their knowledge or consent?"

Parents are supposed to be given all the facts re what medications/procedures are given to their children. Any intelligent parent would do their research first.
If they don't want any 'products of abortion' (?) inserted into their babies, then they can say no

Dear Suse,

I agree that your taxes should not go into anything that you do not agree with. If for you this is churches, then so be it.

You say that you don't like it but have no choice? Well, you can help forming a political party that will work towards either making taxes voluntary or allowing tax-payers to ear-mark how their taxes are to be used.

Yuyutsu, sometimes I think you must live in a fantasy world .

What I meant to say was that as members of society we all pay taxes for things we do and do not believe in. Some of us may never need to use any medical facilities for our lifetime, but we all have family and friends who may use them, so we are all willing to put our taxes towards providing healthcare for us all to use if needed.

I can't imagine how a society could exist with its members 'choosing' what their taxes are spent on, or indeed a society where no one pays taxes. Can you imagine that any of the younger members of society wanting to contribute taxes to healthcare facilities if they can't imagine they would ever need them?

Not everyone would want to contribute to infrastructure like roads, bridges etc, but they all want to keep using them. How would you police those using things they didn't contribute taxes to?
Our modern society would deteriorate into the stone age again!

Dear Suse,

We are discussing three different options here:

1. Allowing people to divert their taxes away from activities that go against their conscience, which they find morally repugnant.
2. While tax is still compulsory, letting people optionally allocate on their tax-return which areas their taxes should go into.
3. Making tax optional.

Regarding option 1: this is the very minimum moral decency to have. The number of people who for example find the funding of medical facilities immoral should be negligible and not have a significant financial impact.

Regarding option 2: so what if young people preferred their taxes not to go into the health budget? They could perhaps allocate them to education, while older people who no longer need education would allocate their taxes more into health. Overall this will balance and moreover, the majority of people would probably be too lazy to fill their tax-preference forms and tick "I don't care" so government could smooth it all out easily... unless there is some governmental-function that all oppose and tick-out, which should then indeed fall.

Regarding option 3: my view is that if the people in a given society do not care enough to pay what it takes to uphold their society, then it means that this society is not worth enough to have. If OTOH people do care, then policing would be by social pressure where one who uses but doesn't pay will not be able to look those who pay in the eyes. Now if what it takes to have a "modern" society is coercion and violence, then a stone-age society may be better.

BTW, my personal preference is not option 3. Rather, that people should be freely able to belong or not to any given society. Once this is established, those who choose to belong should then always pay their taxes in full.