This article by Brian Holden is the most muddled and poorly argued article I’ve read in a while on OLO. It is so bad that I begin to question the process of how articles get to be placed on OLO.

Perhaps they think it good to choose the most controversial subject there is, abortion, find an article that presses people’s buttons with some pseudoscience, add a dash of religious bigotry, and you have a certain recipe to increase the participation rates on this site.

If that was the plan, then it worked on me, because here I am adding my little contribution.

Many of the posters above contain more rationality than the article, in much less space. The article itself concludes with “Debating the issue seems pointless”, which makes you wonder why he wasted his breath up until that point. I think he’s wrong. I think any issue that touches on our deepest sensitivities and most basic sense of right and wrong is worth debating.

If I could just tackle one of his many fallacies, Holden is dismissive of the idea that a human embryo can have a soul. The pro-lifer believes the opposite, but Holden is worried the pro-lifer has religious motivation. However he cannot deny a religious position without taking a religious position himself. To deny a position you must enter the same philosophical plane (which he obviously does). For example, the denial of theism is atheism. That he dresses his position in scientific terms does not hide that he simply holds a different position to the pro-lifers on the human soul. He’s not any less religious.

If I could offer one reason why I believe abortion is wrong (trying hard to not to refer to any one particular religion), I appeal to the interconnectedness of all people. ‘No man is an island.’ As humans we sense our relatedness. Go back far enough in ancestry and we are all related. I challenge the individuality in our society. When any one life is ended, no matter how small or defenseless, we all feel pain and feel at loss.

The person I would most like to pick the bone with is Chainsmoker, and maybe DavidJS who said something similar, that is, pro-lifers are just finding it hard to get over the fact that abortion is now legal.

Hey, Chainsmoker, this country is a democracy. We are always free to change the laws. All it needs is a popular vote. In fact, if you want to be a good citizen, you are morally obliged to help or at least vote to change bad laws.

The abortion law changed with Roe v. Wade (and other similar court decisions around the world) about 30 or so years ago. Not long before that, the law was different and most people thought differently. Times change and tides turn fairly quickly.

That reminds me that 2007 is the 200th anniversary of the law that brought the abolition of slavery around the British Empire. In those days slavery was the hot debate, just like abortion is now. Many of the same arguments were used, “it is a personal choice, if you don’t believe in slavery then don’t have slaves.” “Don’t let your religion interfere with my personal morals”. But after that the slavery laws were changed, and we all (I think) believe they changed for the better.

And just by the way, abortion is still illegal technically. That’s right; it is illegal to kill the baby in the womb. The decision in Roe v. Wade changed the law by saying that a doctor may terminate a pregnancy in the event that such a doctor is willing to say that the termination is in the health interests of the mother. And there are many doctors out there who make their livings by being willing to say such a thing for the slightest of reasons.

If abortion was not still a criminal act, why is it that the Victorian governments, along with some other state governments, are proposing legislation to ‘decriminalise’ abortion?

The average mother in the developed word gives live birth to less than three children in her lifetime. With the depletion of our resources that is more than enough. In effect about 300 eggs in the menstral cycles of each woman's potential childbearing years are destroyed along with millions of her patners sperm.
It is strange that many of those who oppose abortion are the philosophical descendants of the people who murdered so called witches ( many of whom were only affected by rye flour poisoning) and who condemned Galileo for supporting the thesis that the earth went around the sun.
The sensible limit to abortion is that no one has the right to inflict pain or disadvantage on a concious personality. The foetus in the first few months is not a conscious personality.
We need to get our priorities right.
All pro-lifers should ask themselves what is their personal priority between unborn foetuses and the 30000 children who die each day because we do not feed or house them adequately or did not provide adequate birth control measures to their parents.

"The evidence for objective morals is the fact that we are all having this discussion. If morality were merely subjective, we wouldn’t bother: we’d just have our different moral “feelings” and that would be that, there’d be nothing to discuss."

Goodthief, I'm puzzled as to how you came to your conclusion.
Emotional intelligence after all, has to do with thinking about
how we feel. The emotionally engulfed don't do that, they just
follow their feelings. See the brain for its different "centres"
for a better word, all competing. What you feel and what you think
are not the same.

What we can show, if we study other primates (we too are classified
as primates btw), is that what can be called simple morals and ethics
are in fact part of their lives in groups and tribes, as social
species. From an evolutionary perspective, living in groups has
distinct advantages for some species.

So you will see empathy, food sharing, cooperation, do not kill
your own tribal members etc, all occuring within their groups.
If you are interested, primatologist Frans de Waal has written
some great books on the subject.

In fact, studying primatolgy is a great way to increase your
understanding of people :)

So I put it to you that morality is grounded in biology. Harmonious
living in a tribe has distinct advantages when it comes to survival.

Morality will thus always be subjective. If you look at the age of
consent for instance. Our society claims its 16, anything below
that and people are considered paedophiles. Other societies have
drawn different lines in their sand. Its much the same with abortion.
Abortion in the first tremester has become pretty well the "standard"
in most countries now. But again, its a line in the sand that
we've all drawn, no higher being involved in that line.

Thanks for a very rational and informed comment on the abortion debate Brian. Unfortunately there is no way of keeping an open mind about this question and certainly no way of changing anyone's mind about which side they are on. All one can do is make up one's own mind about what is the right course of action for oneself and then avoid making that choice for anyone else. Our freedom of speech and action are suffering so many assaults from zealots, bigots and fanatics that we need to guard and protect what we have left.

Good thief
“I regard God as sovereign and humans as equal subjects.”

That you consider God as Sovereign and you his subject is your sovereign choice, a choice not universally supported.

My morality is between me and my God, who might be the same as your God but I see our relationship as somewhat different to yours.

A woman’s right to exercise choice to abort is between her and her God and nothing to do with you or my moral choices.

Re” and who isn’t, an individual. I say the foetus is.”

Prior to the moment of birth the foetus is whole and totally dependent upon the bodily resources of the mother. “Birth” defines the point at which the “separate individual” emerges. Pre-birth = adjoined and dependent upon the woman whose uterus is for gestation.