StG- as a matter of fact I have seen a few atheists who are anti abortion- however, they usually fit snuggly into one or more of the following camps:

-People that were brought up in dogmatic catholic backgrounds, stopped being religious but maintained much of their other baggage.

-People that idolize 'right wing' figures and sycophantically mimic their every stance (which often means an anti-abortion stance to pander to authoritarian types or Christians. Also these types tend to also be against public-funded medicine.

-People that like controlling others

-People that resent the promiscuous circumstances leading to the pregnancy (confirmed by the line "its ok if she were raped though" for political correctness only- meaning the supposed sanctity of life stops when it wasn't the result of sinful shenadigans).

I've yet to see an example that goes outside these parameters- or isn't just simply a Christian anyway.

Usually the only times I've seen atheists not staunchly part of these criteria arguing against abortion, they've only done so for the sake of playing devils advocate to stimulate debate.

Runner,

Expressing my opinion that everyone should be able to choose, is hardly imposing my opinion on others. Anti choice activists wish to strip others of their choice to exercise their rights.

Herman,

Having found out what a Grogan is, I find your posts both childish and vile. Added to your bigotry, and intolerance gives you an impressive CV for the KKK.

STG

The pro life / pro choice debate is almost exclusively split along fundementalist religious / non religious lines, while there are exceptions, they are very few.

King Hazza,
Are you aware of Roe v Wade,
the seminal legal case that legalised abortion in the USA?
The plaintiff Roe in the case was later revealed as Norma McCorvey.
I wonder if she fits your mold?
Roe v. McCorvey:
http://www.leaderu.com/common/roev.html
Interestingly, she claims never to have had an abortion.

What a fascinating link, HermanYutic.

>>The plaintiff Roe in the case was later revealed as Norma McCorvey.
I wonder if she fits your mold?<<

I had no idea that she was such an interesting person.

"Her grandmother was a prostitute and fortuneteller. Her father was a television repairman, her mother an alcoholic. Part Cajun, part Cherokee Indian, and raised as a Jehovah's Witness, Norma Leah Nelson was 10 when she took money from the gas station where she worked to run away from home. After that, her education came from reform schools until the ninth grade. By the time she was 15, she had been sexually assaulted by a nun and a male relative of her mother's. At 16, she married an itinerant steel worker, Woody McCorvey, who, she says, beat her. She left him and returned to her mother's house in Dallas with plans to raise her unborn child alone.

But after her daughter, Melissa, was born and Ms. McCorvey confided in her mother that her sexual preference was for women, she says, her mother kidnapped Melissa, banished Ms. McCorvey from the house and raised her granddaughter herself...

What followed for her were years of alcohol and drug abuse, and jobs as varied as bartender and carnival barker. After an affair with a co-worker resulted in a second pregnancy when she was 19, she gave the baby up for adoption...

By the time she had another affair and was pregnant with her third child, which became the Roe baby, she was 21. "I never considered myself a lesbian then," she recalls. "My mother put it into my head that I was bisexual. I only ever slept with four or five men, but I got pregnant with three of them. With women it wasn't so easy to get pregnant."

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/28/garden/at-home-with-norma-mccorvey-of-roe-dreams-and-choices.html

To be fair to King Hazza, it would take a demographic genius to have fit this individual into any specific "mold" at all.

Incidentally, is it significant that the site you referred us to is sponsored by "the faculty outreach and training arm of Campus Crusade for Christ International?"

As I said Herman it would not matter what evidence came light. Imagine the outcry if honest statistics were published on the link between sodomy and disease and death. You have as much chance of the secular Government publishing that as you would an honest paper on climate science. The same goes with negative affects on woman having abortions. They know they can give a few more drugs to numb the guilt when it enviably comes. Thankfully many look to God's Word for truth. It remains unchanged and still contains by far the most healthy lifestyles. Thank God many women have turned to Him for healing and forgiveness. Hopefully a few of the butchers might also find a conscience.

It boils down to one very simple question about where one believes life begins. Some people believe a foetus or a bunch of cells is not the same as a living 'out of womb' person who has earned the rights we endow to the living by virtue of being born.

Abortion for most women I imagine is a difficult decision and one that is not taken lightly in most cases. This would suggest that those 'life defining' issues are not easily or clearly defined otherwise the decision would not be fraught with such emotional quandary. Perhaps partly because of our Judeo-Christian heritage but I think it goes further than that - humans possess a natural instinct to preserve life generally. The issues here are who defines when life begins? How old should a foetus be when it is no longer considered ethical to abort?

These are all difficult questions. The problem is that amid those sorts of questions are questions about rights. There is a bunch of conflicting, competing and interwoven rights that make it very much a personal choice of the woman concerned.

One thing is for certain is that abortion has always been around and will always continue regardless of religiosity. Hopefully we won't see a return to the unsanitary backyard abortion clinics of old.

Catholics and Muslims have abortions as do many others. Religiosity in itself does not prevent abortions. Catholics historically have sought abortions for many reasons such as denial of contraception which led to large families, poverty and risk to health of the primary carer, the mother.