For a page summary:  Page Five --  The "Real" Truth About Abortion . 

To understand the context of this discussion:  Summary  &  Index . 

If you have not already done so, please see:  The Editors Note . 

T.L.C.   Are you saying that the anti-abortion leaders have simply proclaimed answers to these unanswerable questions and are using their self-proclamations as a basis for proposing to outlaw abortion?

Big D   Let’s let the evidence answer that question.    When we examine the meaning and consequences of  abortion from the religious perspective,  we find three very different and contradictory meanings.   Each of the three basic religious assumptions about life  (atheism, Christian one-life-ism, and reincarnation) offers its own answer to several key religious questions.   I'll give you just one example:

Are the Christians right  --  Does God really create a brand new soul every time a human egg and sperm unite?   

Are believers in reincarnation correct -- are we eternal being who always were and always will be?

Are Atheists correct -- are we simply clumps of clay that have magically acquired consciousness?  Will we cease to be when our body dies?

This question and those I mentioned a few minutes ago (page four)   show you that abortion is first and foremost a religious issue.

T.L.C.   Most people don’t think of abortion as a religious issue.

Big D   That’s because, where religion is concerned, most people don’t think at all.   They’ve been programmed by their leaders not to think, and to immediately reject anything that looks like it might question their beliefs.   They’re simply told what to think.   The Christian Bible even refers to these people as sheep.

T.L.C.   OK, why is abortion a religious issue?

Big D   Because there are no provable answers to dozens of relevant questions and because these are questions that have been debated primarily in religious circles for centuries.   You also need to be aware that:

       And then there's the most obvious reason why abortion is a religious issue:

T.L.C.   What's that?

Big D   The two major camps in this controversy are clearly divided along religious lines.   The anti-abortion, anti-sex, anti-evolution, anti-cloning, anti-gay rights, fundamentalist Christians and the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy are on one side and almost everyone else who cares about this issue is on the other side.  

Does this or does this not lead to a most probable conclusion that abortion is a religious freedom issue?

T.L.C.   Yah, but so what?

Big D   My, you are a skeptic, aren’t you?   If abortion actually is something quite different from what the public has been told it is, then the beliefs commonly held and the decisions regularly made about abortion could be and probably are inaccurate.   Decisions based:

            on only a small portion of the truth,

            on distortions of the truth,

            on speculation, conjecture, or guess work,

            on what "Momma" told us when we were five-years old,

            on personal religious beliefs, and

            on highly emotional rhetoric

            are bound to be something quite different from

            ”The Truth - - The Whole Truth - - And Nothing but the Truth.”

.

But please don’t believe me.   And don’t disbelieve me either.   Examine the evidence.   Come to your own conclusions.   BUT… be aware that others may look at the same evidence and come to some very different conclusions.

T.L.C.   That seems fair enough.   Where do we start?

Big D   We have two clearly opposite positions.   Let’s start by defining those positions and then we’ll look at the assumptions underlying them.

The voices on the pro-choice side say, “Go away.  Leave us alone.   Every woman has the right to make her own decision about terminating or continuing a pregnancy.”  

The voices opposing abortion rights say, “Life begins at conception; therefore, abortion is murder.   You do not have the right to terminate a pregnancy because you are killing an innocent human being.   We are simply protecting the rights of a human being who cannot protect him/herself.”

T.L.C.   And what about the underlying assumptions?

Continued on Page Six:
Abortion and the Three Religious Assumptions