Nope, this is false because abortion is a human rights issue. You do not have to be from any particular faith tradition to agree that human life should be protected and that intentionally ending the life of another human being is not right. It is a strategy used by those who want to legalise abortion, they  turn the spotlight off of the horrors of abortion and on the ‘restriction’ of freedom because of religion.

Some of the world’s best-known self-professed atheists have also declared their support for the pro-life position, eg Christopher Hitchens.

You don’t need to have a faith to know abortion is wrong and some people with faith think it is justified. Either way, abortion is never right and you don’t need religion to tell you that. What it really comes down to is morality, but more importantly human rights.

What one may find morally wrong, does not mean another will as well. Lockhart suggests that, “where we have to make a moral choice, we should take the course of action that we are most confident is morally correct.”

Anti-abortion activists each have their own reasons for opposing abortion, and yes some of those reasons are because of religious beliefs, but ultimately the anti-abortion activist believe that the right to life needs to be protected, from conception to natural death. These are human rights that should be guarded, regardless of religious belief.

So why do those who lobby for the Repeal of the 8th Amendment seek to make the abortion debate as one about religion?

For this answer we turn to former abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson.  Dr. Nathonson along with Lawrence Lader founded the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) in the United States, an organisation whose aim was to fight for the right of abortion.

Before his conversion to protect the unborn, Dr. Nathanson owned and operated what was at the time the largest abortion clinic in the western hemisphere, and was directly involved in over sixty thousand abortions.

“Dr. Nathanson’s study of developments in the science of fetology and his use of ultrasound to observe the unborn child in the womb led him to the conclusion that he had made a horrible mistake. Resigning from his lucrative position, Nathanson wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that he was deeply troubled by his ‘increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.'”1 Given that Nathanson was heavily involved in abortion rights in the States, his credibility is undoubted when he speaks of the aim of Lader to make the Catholic hierarchy the enemy in the abortion debate. It is thanks to the work of Lader and Nathanson that has brought religion into a debate that is really only about life and the protection of it from abortion.

Nathanson himself admits to NARAL’s strategy of turning the spotlight off of the horrors of abortion and on the “restriction” of freedom because of religion:

“As many pro-life activists would discover early on, through Lader and NARAL the debate would not focus on abortion itself. Pro-abortion activists knew the subject to be distasteful and understood that their cause, particularly in the early years, was a minority position. But to raise the specter of “Catholic power” threatening civil liberties, and the machinations of the “Catholic hierarchy” and their “unquestioning constituents” marching in lockstep appealed to a visceral anti-Catholicism in American culture. It was more appealing to argue against Catholicism than for abortion.”2

Here is snipped from the Nathanson’s book, Aborting America, which show why the Catholic hierarchy rather than all Catholics were targeted as the enemy to abortion:

“…Larry read me my last basic lesson in the political primer.

“Historically,” he said after the usual throat-clearing ceremony, “every revolution has to have its villain. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a king, a dictator, or a tsar, but it has to be someone, a person, to rebel against. It’s easier for the people we want to persuade to perceive it this way.”

I conceded that. It was good tactical strategy.

“Now, in our case, it makes little sense to lead a campaign only against unjust laws, even though that’s what we really are doing. We have to narrow the focus, identify those unjust laws with a person or a group of people. A single person isn’t quite what we want, since that might excite sympathy for him. Rather, a small group of shadowy, powerful people. Too large a group would diffuse the focus, don’t you see?”

I nodded. Where was he going?

“There’s always been one group of people in this country associated with reactionary politics, behind-the-scenes manipulation, socially backward ideas. You know who I mean, Bernie.”

Not the Catholics again?

“Well, yes and no.” Throat-clearing again. A heavy thought coming. And I wasn’t wrong. It was his devil theory.

“Not just all Catholics. First of all, that’s too large a group, and for us to vilify them all would diffuse our focus. Secondly, we have to convince liberal Catholics to join us, a popular front as it were, and if we tar them all with the same brush, we’ll just antagonize a few who might otherwise have joined us and be valuable show-pieces for us. No, it’s got to be the Catholic hierarchy. That’s a small enough group to come down on, and anonymous enough so that no names ever have to be mentioned, but everybody will have a fairly good idea whom we are talking about.” (pg. 51-52)3

The simple matter of fact is, abortion is not a religious issue, yes religious and non-religious people make it about religion, but at the end of the day it is an argument about life. We have learned many things from Dr. Nathanson, but what must be remembered is the following:

“I think that abortion policy ought not be beholden to a sectarian creed, but that obviously the law can and does encompass moral convictions shared by a variety of religious interests. In the case of abortion, how­ever, we can and must decide on the biological evidence and on funda­mental humanitarian grounds without resorting to scriptures, revelations, creeds, hierarchical decrees, or belief in God. Even if God does not exist, the fetus does.“4