Pro-Life Atheist (arguments for why abortion is wrong)

Needless to say, I am a pro-life atheist. It should also be needless to say that most atheists are pro-choice.

Abortion is morally wrong, and can be easily argued against using secular-reasoning. While moral-relativists will attempt to twist logic to justify its practice, they are unable to do so without completely devaluing human-life.

In the below video, Sam Harris fails to present an argument for why destroying human-life (albeit young) is morally permissible.

Firstly, he claims that every cell in "your" body has the potential for creating a new life, which is dodging the issue by creating a fictitious scenario. There is a difference between potential and actual occurrence (hindsight vs. foresight). An embryo is human life that is actually occurring. The said life would develop into a fully functioning human being (excluding death via disease and murder). By his logic it is morally permissible for a mother to kill her offspring regardless of age. She could potentially have gotten an abortion in the past (which is impossible outside of this warped logic), which is "morally acceptable" if we accept abortion as being moral. The life could potentially have not existed at all, so it is not wrong to end it if we use our imagination. Using the imagination to create scenarios of what potentially could have happened in the past can be used to justify anything. Obviously we should be looking at what is actually occurring, and leave fantasy out of the debate.

As far as consciousness is concerned, it is impossible (at the moment) to know of consciousness outside of the self. We see life that is similar to us and assume it must have it, but we cannot know for sure. The consciousness argument (i.e. lack of consciousness in an embryo) doesn't hold water for the simple fact that we do not know what consciousness is. It is impossible for us to determine scientifically what does and what doesn't have consciousness. But, let's say that consciousness exists subjectively only if we are able to remember it (for the sake of argument, obviously memory of consciousness does not equate to consciousness itself). Does lack of consciousness completely devalue human life/potential? Is it morally permissible to murder someone after knocking them unconscious (referring to the act of murdering the unconscious, not the act of knocking someone out)? Of course people that are knocked unconscious have the potential to be conscious, given enough time, and the same is true for an embryo/fetus.

With his morally bankrupt rational I could justify the murder of anyone. For example, let's say I have an annoying neighbor. I go over to his house and put an end to his life (without going into the details). Me putting an end to his life is not murder because his life potentially could have ended on that day anyways (or shortly down the road). Besides, everyone is going to die eventually, right? If it wasn't me that killed him, something surely would have eventually. As long as I remember to make him go unconscious, it is morally permissible to do whatever I want with him. This logic doesn't sound as great now does it? Human life should obviously not be valued on the consciousness it has at a particular moment (we all have to sleep).

The point here is that many pro-choicers use their imaginations to distract them from what is actually occurring (making murder an easier pill to swallow). They create fantasies in order to distract and justify their wicked beliefs (to themselves and others). When human-life exists and a person acts in order to put an end to that life, that is murder by definition (if the life agrees to be killed then that is euthanasia, which is a separate issue).

The reality is that an embryo is a human life in and of itself (a very dependent one, like most humans are in one way or another), and will grow into a fully functioning human-being if it is not murdered beforehand. Pro-choicers create fictitious scenarios and use word-play as a means of dodging the actual issue. This is one area within the atheist community that disappoints me. It shows that many atheists are as sheepish as anyone else. Anyone that actually thinks about what is occurring here should easily see how immoral abortion is. Sociopathic individuals will warp reality and logic to suit their own ends, regardless if human life gets in their way. Of course for the practice of abortion to be morally acceptable (as well as not a crime) pro-choicers must do everything they can to convince others that they are not actually destroying human-life. Pro-choicers use their imaginations as a means of diversion as well as a means of dehumanizing human-life (which can't be done with any intellectual honesty).

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Christians also need to start using secular arguments for debating abortion, God is not a convincing argument for atheists/secularists.