There Is a Secular Case for Life

You don’t have to be a Christian to oppose abortion.

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I don’t want to bore readers with too many “back in the day” stories, but I want to start with a memorable moment from my law school life that’s directly relevant to the present moment. 

Back in the early 1990s, the conservative legal movement was small. The Federalist Society was nothing like the legal juggernaut it is today. The Alliance Defending Freedom, now the nation’s largest religious-liberty legal organization, didn’t even exist. These days, if you’re a young lawyer who cares about life and religious liberty, there are a number of lavishly funded legal organizations that are happy to train you and hire you.

Back then? Well, you did what my law school roommate and I did on a cold winter’s night in 1992: Get in his battered Honda, drive to a third-tier hotel in Pennsylvania, and attend a “national conference” that was mainly just a few people eating bad chicken in a small conference room. 

Still, for me, that conference was a memorable, seminal event. I heard from a man who shaped the way I think and speak about abortion for the rest of my life. Amidst a squadron of religious conservative lawyers, there was a single atheist progressive. He was bearded, disheveled, and quiet, but when he spoke everyone fell silent. Everyone leaned forward to hear what he had to say.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ed P

    Mr French still misses the point here!!

    The moral argument is one I absolutely share! And it comes from a place of fundamental belief. Its just not one the state can mandate in a free nation like ours

    When we argue about abortion and the Supreme Court, we are arguing civic policy, not moral policy. Or put in another way, about mandating moral/religious policy as law aka fundamentalism

    This is about what we allow our neighbors to do. We still have our individual choice and can still exercise our own personal moral choice if first trimester abortion rights are recognized.

    But there just is no civic argument without the religion. At the end of the day, this is about what the state allows our neighbors to do or not. And there just is no civic argument if you take the religion out, for what you say your neighbor is allowed to do with their potential child before it has a nervous system capable of functioning on any level remotely close to an existence like a human. That the state can swoop in to protect this thing before it can possibly feel pain or have any thoughts of self realization, is an obvious imposition on the mother, who has her reasons that are simply not our business. There just is no case it is our business.

    I’ll agree that after the nervous system forms, there is an argument for the state to be involved - a civic case for protecting human life. And the closer to fully functioning/fully formed aka “natural born” in our Constitution, the more compelling that case becomes to more people.

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  3. Michael.Mcchesney

    I meant to read this when it was released, but got sidetracked. As a pro-life agnostic I think it's worth me commenting, even if I am a couple of weeks late.

    I was raised in an Irish Catholic family and attended Catholic school through 8th grade. But as a 16-year-old high school sophomore, I had a crisis of faith and decided that I didn't have enough evidence to justify believing in an all powerful deity. I identify as agnostic rather than as an atheist for 2 reasons. First, there are some atheists that seem to delight in mocking people of faith as superstitious fools. I have no interest in that. I'm looking at you Bill Maher. Second, I have no evidence proving God doesn't exist. I think it is exceedingly unlikely, but I try to be open to any new evidence. Deciding that I didn't believe was incredibly difficult and I recall being overwhelmed with all the references to God in our society, media, and literature that I hadn't really noticed before. Now it seemed like such references were everywhere making me feel somewhat isolated. But I felt that intellectually I had no choice but to not believe even if I was sure I would have been happier if I did.

    Before that crisis of faith, I really did believe in God. I was also fervently pro-life. In some ways, I think that believing abortion was wrong was more fundamental to my psyche than belief in God. I think if I had not been raised to believe abortion was murder, I would probably be prochoice today because I am fairly libertarian in my other political beliefs. Ultimately, I decided that the way Roe made fetal viability the threshold for a state to be allowed to protect an unborn life meant that whether a fetus had a right to life was entirely dependent on the state of medical technology. Eventually, science will allow artificial wombs to push viability back as far as conception. I am bothered by that. But also, as Nat Hentoff said, a fetus is a human being, not a Kangaroo.

    A law against abortion does not violate the establishment or free exercise clauses anymore than a law against stealing violates those clauses even though the Ten Commandments forbids stealing. Moral beliefs can be based in religion or in secular philosophy. If we decided that we had to abolish any law that outlawed something a religion taught was wrong, well there would be a lot fewer laws we had to follow. But I really wouldn't want to live in a society where killing people was perfectly legal.

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      Ed P

      Lovely sentiments Michael, thank you for sharing. I like the bit about Bill Maher especially- that sort of hateful attitude towards religion among liberals is such a problem and so deeply based in misunderstanding and talking past one another.

      I disagree with your overall conclusions tho. As a moral conclusion, I agree, taking a human life at any stage is totally out of bounds for me personally. But as a civic policy, we shouldn’t mandate that to others in our free nation.

      We shouldn’t think of this as a moral dilemma as it applies to law. We should think of it as civic dilemma. Rights and interests. What exactly does the state protect when it protects that proto-human? There cannot possibly be any suffering involved or aggrieved parties before a certain level of development is reached in that fetus.

      The viability threshold is one that is compelling to many as a dividing line. In my view, it is the development of the nervous system that is critical. Perceptions of pain/suffering, self realization, and biological independence all stem from the functionality of the nervous system. So this should be the measure, and it is not dependent on the level of technological development.

      I would argue the moral argument does indeed shift with technological development.

      I believe the correct policy in a free nation with separated church and state is that the state has no business in the first trimester and abortion should be available on demand as a medical treatment. After the first trimester, a woman may choose ‘to evict’ but not to abort. That is, there must be a good faith effort to preserve the child’s life after inducing birth. The mother is responsible for the financial burden of this care, which must include reasonable measures, no matter their cost. Of course, mother might arrange for adoptive parents to cover whatever costs, and activists might start funds to protect life and mothers choices to help care for such.

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      1. Michael.Mcchesney

        I once worked with a guy that had an affair with a woman in her 30s when he was 14. His parents had her prosecuted and she went to prison. But she also had gotten pregnant, decided to have the baby and sued the father/rape victim for child support. When I knew him he was 19 and angry about having to pay. I agree there is something unfair about a (statutory) rapist being able to sue their victim. But if the girl had also been 14 he would have been responsible. He thought since he wanted her to have an abortion and she declined he shouldn't owe any support. I don't think that should be the rule.

        But should the mother alone be responsible for the cost of caring for a child delivered prematurely because the mother wanted to end her pregnancy early? It's possible such a child could need a lifetime of very expensive care. Should the father be responsible for the cost of the care if he didn't want the pregnancy terminated?

        Despite a relatively promiscuous youth, I was never responsible for getting anyone pregnant. If I had though, I would have done all I could to convince her not to terminate. I would have been willing to pay child support or even to raise the child on my own. I'd probably have beeen willing to get married but that would have depended on the situation. The one thing I'd absolutely refuse to do would be to pay for my child to be killed. Do you think that a victim of statutory rape should have to pay child support? Are there any circumstances under which a father should be compelled to pay an abortion?

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          Ed P

          It is tricky for sure! But it is ultimately a woman’s choice in that first trimester in my eyes. The man who has caused the pregnancy should not be forced to pay for care that stems from mother’s choice. The male however, should be compelled to pay his share of the cost of raising the child should it survive and remain in mother’s care.

          This case of statutory rape is an interesting example. In my opinion, the male in this case should absolutely not be responsible for any payments or care for that child, stemming from mother’s choice OR in general for the child’s care. The responsibility is entirely on the rapist who then chose to not abort the child stemming from a coupling fundamentally without consent.

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    2. DeCenizas

      While I disagree with your analysis I’m upvoting you to leave it here anyway.

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  4. PatrickD

    Excellent! Thank you.

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    Ben Connelly

    I agree completely. The best arguments against abortion are scientific, not religious. Pro-abortion is anti-science. There absolutely is a secular case for life.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    This might hold the record for most comments on a Dispatch newsletter ever!

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  7. Monty Brown

    a failure of a profession to be clear in its codes should never be a cause to imply intent on the part of the patient.

    and this one should be easy, a sentence or two distinguishing a needed follow on for some to deal with xxx.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Jeanne A



    This is a long post - my apologies - please skip over it if you don't have the time.

    David, today, I read your French Press article from the 7th and it just didn’t sit right with me. It’s not that I disagreed with you, it’s more that I thought it was the wrong thing to be talking about. Personally, I think a lot of people are talking about all the wrong things right now when it comes to abortion.

    Here’s the thing, taking a position like I oppose or I support abortion is a terrible and mostly untrue position. I don’t know a single person, conservative or liberal, religious on non, man or woman who would say they support abortion. But none of them agree with the fall of Roe and the resultant debacle in red states like Texas where I live. The reason is that we need abortion access for emergencies, for life and death decisions, and for rape and incest. If people think it was wrong to deny that 10 year old girl in Iowa access to an abortion than they are not pro-life. But don’t worry, giving her access to an abortion wasn’t pro-choice either. It was a terrible thing to happen to a little girl both the rape and the abortion. She will be very lucky, indeed, if she ever gets past these events in her life. That’s not a choice, that’s emergency medical care. That’s what I support. Appropriate medical care for women in crisis.

    But I am a woman, so I know that there will always be these emergencies for my lifetime and that of my daughter. Some of these crises will be as a result of violence and trauma. Many will be no one’s fault, except for those people today who are trying to outlaw even procedures necessary post miscarriage. I know that because I have lived with this all my life as has every other woman on the planet. The Supreme Court kicked the only protection American women had over these sorts of emergencies out from under us without ensuring that something else was in place. And they did it with a majority of men who are uniquely unqualified to even have an opinion on the matter.

    Constitutional rights (or the lack thereof), religious beliefs, moral fiber, biology, whether white people are becoming a minority and what does a lower birth rate mean for our economy, are all being discussed, I even read some guy quoted as saying that women need to do their duty and bear children. Boy, he better hope we never meet! The men in leadership in my state will feel completely free to fly their wives, daughters, and mistresses to wherever they need to go to have whatever procedure they need to have while at the same time dooming poor women to all manner of terrible outcomes up to and including a ruined life or even death.

    Where is the discussion that you have mentioned at least once about what happens next? The states being run by true civil servants are making sure they have the appropriate protections in place for women and their reproductive rights, or at the very least, like in Kansas, they are putting the issue on the ballot so people can weigh in. There will be no such vote in Texas because we do not have responsible leaders. We have corruption and men who want to be God.

    The states that take the most authoritarian and reckless stand on abortion laws are also those with the worst social safety nets, worst records for CPS, highest rates of childhood poverty, and of maternal deaths. What are the odds that these are also going to be the states that improve their safety nets so that women can support themselves and their children?

    So, here’s an idea of the kinds of conversations that should be taking place across the country right now, urgently:

    1. There’s no excuse in a democracy for legislation being passed that has not been opened to public debate, discussion, and or vote.
    2. Women need to be able to support themselves and their children.
    3. Two parent households are only the ideal when two parents want and love the child. Children do not thrive in two parent households of violence.
    4. If there’s no exceptions in the case of rape or incest, who is going to pay for the trauma of rape, the trauma of being forced to carry that child and then the child’s trauma of being raised in a home filled with trauma and anger?
    5. What happens when the rape is incest? What about the DNA implications and the possibility for birth defects?
    6. What will be done about the coding of medical procedures such as D and C which is used after a miscarriage but coded as an abortion. Already doctors are refusing to do them. Women can go septic and die. See the case of Marlena Stell of Texas.
    7. We need to radically reform CPS. How many states are doing a terrible job with CPS, further traumatizing kids who are already traumatized?
    8. What should happen if a woman’s doctor tells her she should not have any more children because the next pregnancy will most likely kill her, and then the current bad political actors start chipping away at access to contraceptives.
    9. I haven’t even gotten to crack babies who are born with AIDS, and an estimated life span of 1-4 years, or babies who are born so deformed and sick that they will only live a few hours in pain and then die, or the children who are sent home to those violent households and then tortured and killed by one or both parents.

    This is what we need to talk about, and it needs to be doctors and women who are doing much of the talking. It needs to be now.

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  9. Mathias

    Thank you for the thoughtful piece. I would say that your article demonstrates that there are secular people who can support life, not that there is a secular case for it. If secularism means the same thing as materialism (discounting any existence outside of the physical world), then there can be no secular case for life or for any value, since describing 'what is' can never lead to 'what ought to be'. 'Ought' is a moral term, and secularism has no basis for asserting morality. It can only do so by invoking moral standards which do not have a place in its worldview; and thankfully, many secularists are content to do this because they know that it's right and that's that. We should be grateful for their willingness to prioritize intuitive morality over philosophical coherence, but that doesn't change the fact that secularism as an ideology is morally bankrupt by its own design.

    Now if by 'secular', you meant 'not affiliated with a defined religious denomination', then yes, there is room for a moral argument to be made in such an agnostic worldview. One doesn't have to claim possession of the moral yardstick to acknowledge that such a yardstick exists. Morals aren't limited only to active worshippers of a deity. But they are impossible for atheism to substantiate (note that I didn't say atheists).

    Since moral judgments presuppose the objective existence of an invisible but very real and absolutely universal moral code (which no man fully knows or practices, but all men instinctively know is out there), the belief in that moral law's existence is what allows us to base our morality on something more than our feelings. The true ideal atheist, having rejected belief in such a code's objective existence (as such a law would require a lawgiver), can make no refusal to any evil beyond 'I don't like it.' He can claim something to be right or wrong, but he can provide no proofs of it because he possesses none outside of himself. The believer in such a law, on the other hand, can point to the law to back up his position. Then all he has to do is prove that he understands and practices the law more correctly than others do, and this is the backdrop to all human arguments and debates and religious wars throughout history :) But even in those cases, at least all parties share a common belief that there does exist a standard, and all men are held to it whether they know it or not.

    It's all in Lewis' "Abolition of Man", of course. What do they teach them in those schools these days, anyway?

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  10. Jack

    As I write this there are nearly 1300 comments about David's article. It's probable that this has been discussed elsewhere but it hasn't been discussed recently ( I went back several hundred posts). For me, one of the big takeaways was the need for consistency. If we are Pro-life we need to think about that not only in our opinions about abortion but also in criminal justice situations. The article did change my opinion about the use of the death penalty as a deterrent but I still believe there are exceptions for both abortion (rape,incest and life of the mother) and the death penalty (I think there are truly evil people who the death penalty would be a justifiable action.)

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