Abortion does always boil down to religion.

However, it is the pro-abortionists who are the ones pushing their religious view.

The strictly scientific point of view is that the unborn is a distinct, individual member of the human species from conception.

Pro-abortionists argue about 'personhood' to justify abortion, but this is a subjective, meta-physical concept, i.e. religious.

Alan you miss the point completely and confuse philosophy with theology.

At the end of the day, the notion of the sanctity of life is a philosophical one, so is subjective and open to debate. People will argue about where we draw a line in the sand, in understanding the difference between a human organism and a person.

People with an open mind are therefore free to consider many sides of the debate. The rights of women, the sustainability of the planet in terms of overpopulation, etc. etc.

Only religion lays claims to objective morality, ie their interpretation of their holy book, or that their leaders are in touch with the Almighty. The Catholic Church takes if further, with their doctrine of the holy sperm etc.

As the religious can show no substantiated evidence of the literal truth of so called godly input, IMHO their doctrine is purely their subjective opinion and no more. But you won't convince the religious that, or many of them anyhow. If its in the holy book, then it must be true after all.

When I pay tax I don't get to say "here's my money but it can't be used for the hospitalisation of people who took illegal drugs, nor can it go to Australian soldiers in Iraq because I have strong personal objections."

We don't always agree with everything that our government spends our money on, so I don't see how it's "inappropriate" on the basis suggested.

Our culture believes that people shouldn't be allowed to kill each other - for many practical, ethical and religious reasons. I certainly agree as a general rule, however the state does allow people to take other human lives in certain circumstances. For example if someone was threatening to kill me and I stopped them from doing so by killing them, then that is saddening and traumatic but not illegal.

It also seems to think that I shouldn't be allowed to kill myself. To me whether I live or die is my decision. I do realise that many people want a society where they are free to try and stop me, however I don't think this is really going to make much difference for me.

For an abortion however making it illegal makes a big difference. Do we go back to dangerous backyard abortions? The pro-lifers can't retrieve my unborn child or force me to continue to carry it without infringing upon my rights over my own body. The rights of an unborn child that is still within my body do not supersede mine.

The bottom line is that at this time the child is part of me, it doesn't matter if doctors think that if they invade my body they can make it live outside of me. If I make the decision that my unborn child should not be born then that is my decision to make. It is not a decision to be made easily and I imagine it is greatly saddening and traumatic for the mother when that path is chosen but it should certainly not be illegal.

No Yabby, it is you who are missing the point.
Metaphysics is 'religious' unless you self-servingly try to define the scope of the term religion to exclude your own beliefs.

You fall into the same trap when you try to differentiate between a scientific truth of human specieshood and a metaphysical claim of personhood. The pro-abortionists are trying to push their metaphysical notions, i.e. religion, on other humans, without their choice.

The christian anti-abortion argument rests not on the metaphysical, but simply the physical truth of membership in the human race.

If you want to avoid metaphysics in arguing for abortion by arguing against the concept of the sanctity of life, you would have to argue that no human has a right to life.

Alan, looks like we can get bogged down in semantics here, but thats ok :)

My trusty old dictionary defines religion as a belief in god or gods and activities connected with that belief. Metaphysics is defined as a branch of philosophy which deals with theories about what exists and how we know it exists.

Do I believe in the sanctity of the human cell or human organism?
Absolutaly not. Every cell contains the dna to build another body.So what? Do I believe in the sanctity of a person, sure I do. That is my philosophy, which is my subjective take on morality, based on my philosophies. As an agnostic, metaphysics doesent come into it.

Likewise the Catholic Church has its philosophies, only they claim
godly input, which they cannot prove.

So I am not trying to push my "religion" onto anyone, I simply want people to have the choice about how to conduct their lives.
The anti abortion lobby wants to deny people that choice, huge difference in philosophy there....
One is for tolerance of other peoples behaviour, the other is trying to use govt legislation to force people to live their lives in a certain fashion, based on belief in the supernatural

Sorry Yabby, but your 'choice' stance is taking away the choice of those unborn humans who are killed. There is no huge difference in philosophy, just the old usage of 'personhood' to take humanity away from a group of human's who people would find it inconvenient to ascribe equality to.

It was done with slaves, and jews, and so many other humans. Now it is done with the unborn. Your 'choice' rhetoric does not really hide this fact.