"Could
it be true?" Marco Rossi asks in the September/October 2012 issue of The Humanist. "Is there really such a thing
as a pro-life atheist? What's next, Intelligent Design Agnostics? How about Secularists for Sharia Law?"
Although Rossi seems to think his analogies are comical and highly effective, they are actually inapt. Pro-life
atheists do not claim God created prenatal children, that he endowed them with souls, or that he even exists.
Instead, pro-life atheists, agnostics, and secular people argue that prenatal children are human beings who have
rights, and that to abort them is wrong.
Kelsey Hazzard is a 24-year-old, pro-life University of Miami alumna and recent graduate of the University of
Virginia School of Law. She was raised in the United Methodist Church , but as an adult began having doubts about
God.
"I took a break from religion for a while, and soon realized that it had no impact whatsoever on my morals," she
said. She now describes herself as an "apatheist," meaning she does not care whether God exists or not, although
she says she finds God's existence "highly unlikely."
"I was pro-life the instant I learned what abortion was," said Hazzard, who is a legal fellow at Americans United
for Life. "But my position became much stronger in college, when I took a course on prenatal development."
In 2009, Hazzard founded Secular ProLife (SPL), a group whose vision is "a world in which abortion is unthinkable,
for people of every faith and no faith." Hazzard, SPL's president, created the group in part to attract
non-religious people to the pro-life movement.
"The first time I attended a March for Life, I was struck by all the religious imagery," she explained. "I thought
'Wow, if this were an atheist's first impression of the pro-life movement, she would never come back!' And from there,
it was a case of 'build it and they will come.'"
Hazzard points to opinion polls showing the US becoming less religious but more pro-life as compelling reasons to
use secular arguments to support the pro-life position. SPL, with a membership made up predominately of
college-aged students, has participated in the annual March for Life and the Students for Life of America
Conference. Last year, SPL attended the American Atheist Convention in Washington , DC , which included Richard
Dawkins among the attendees. SPL also sent a representative to the Texas Freethought Convention last year.
According to SPL member Julie Thielen, who identifies as a gnostic antitheist atheist, the best ways to reach
secular people with the pro-life message are through biology and an appeal to human rights.
"When the sperm meets the egg, a genetically complete human being is formed, and all that is required for
maturation is time and nutrition," Thielen said. "As complete human beings in the most vulnerable stages, there
should be protections afforded. As a society we are judged by how we treat the most vulnerable—the young, the aged,
the infirm, those who can't speak for themselves. The unborn belong here."
For many, the historical argument for human equality is the strongest secular argument in favor of life.
"History has many lessons about human beings who were not legal 'persons,'" said Hazzard. "What seems like common
sense to one generation—'Of course Negroes aren't real people'—is horrific to the next. What criteria can we set
that will prevent this from happening? Every criterion proposed to exclude the unborn can also be used to exclude
others. Consciousness? Then it's fine to kill someone in a temporary coma; they merely have 'potential.' Physical
independence? So much for conjoined twins. Human appearance? Discrimination based on appearance has been some of
the most insidious of all. Birth? Totally arbitrary; there is no 'personhood fairy' residing in the birth canal,
conferring rights upon exit. At the end of the day, human rights are for all humans. If we don't protect them for
the weakest among us, they're rather worthless."
Some pro-choice atheists have expressed skepticism about Secular ProLife, pointing to an old article in the Miami
Hurricane, the University of Miami 's college newspaper, in which the student pro-life group was featured and
Hazzard misidentified as Catholic. "I understand their skepticism, but I'm not Catholic and never have been,"
Hazzard said.
The idea of a pro-life atheist is not new, as Doris Gordon's story proves. For Gordon, a Jewish, atheist
libertarian and former elementary school teacher, it all began in 1959 when she read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
Ironically, although Rand and her associates were adamantly pro-abortion, reading Rand set Gordon on the path to
becoming a fervent pro-lifer. This novel introduced her to Rand 's philosophy, objectivism. Interested by what she
read, Gordon was eager to learn more. In 1960, she took the 20-lecture course "The Basic Principles of
Objectivism" by Rand 's then-closest associate, Nathaniel Branden.
Things began to unravel in 1967, however, when Gordon attended a talk titled "Certainty v. Omniscience" at an
objectivism conference. The talk was given by Leonard Peikoff, a member of Rand 's inner circle and the sole heir
to her estate when she died.
"Following the talk, during a Q&A period, a questioner angrily challenged [Peikoff] about abortion, and a big
debate broke out among the audience and the conference speakers on the topic. One point of disagreement was on
when the new human being begins to exist," Gordon said.
"That word 'exist' really struck me," she continued. " Rand 's philosophy begins with the axiom 'existence
exists'; A is A. Nothing can pre-exist existence. I am something concrete; I didn't exist 100 years ago but today
I do. When did my existence begin?"
"Well, Rand taught us to think for ourselves, so when I went home, I began to do so. My studying objectivism
taught me something about logical reasoning," Gordon said.
She asked herself if there was any essential difference between the moment before she was born and the moment
immediately after. She could not think of any. What about at the junction between the eighth and ninth months?
No. From there, she worked her way back, month by month, to see if she could find any essential difference. She
could not, until she got to the point of fertilization, where something essentially different occurs: the sperm
meets the oocyte, then growth and development can begin.
"It has long been settled by science that in sexual reproduction, the new human organism, a human being, begins
to exist and to grow and mature into an adult. On the other hand, individually, neither a sperm nor an oocyte has
the capacity to do the same. Logically, therefore, the human zygote is already a living human being," she said.
Gordon went on to wonder whether the new human being has rights. Though Rand and Gordon have different ideas on
the definition of "human being," Gordon came to conclude, "If all human beings have rights, as Ayn Rand held, then
so must this new human being."
But there was a problem: "What about the mother's right to control her own body, her unalienable right to
liberty?" The child's right not to be killed seemed to conflict with the mother's right to control her own body.
In 1973, Gordon wrote a letter that was published in Reason, which stated that unwanted pregnancy presented an
insoluble conflict of rights between woman and child. She argued that "the unfortunate child was unaware of what
was happening, and after all, the mother was in existence first." For nine years, Gordon remained on the
"abortion-choice" side of the debate.
Then one day she thought back on an article by Branden she read in The Objectivist Newsletter, titled, "What are
the respective obligations of parents to children, and children to parents?" In a response to a reader's question,
Branden stated that, like it or not, parents have the obligation to take care of their children. "The key to
understanding the nature of parental obligation," he wrote, "lies in the moral principle that human beings must
assume responsibility for the consequences of their actions." He insisted that the basic necessities of food,
clothing, and so forth are the child's "by right." This helped Gordon begin to see why there is no conflict of
rights between mother and child.
"A woman's right to control her own body does not trump a child's right not to be killed," she said. "Given
parental obligation, even in unwanted pregnancy, it is the child's right to parental support and protection from
harm that is trump. Parents have no right to intentionally or negligently destroy their children, nor do they
have a right to evict their children from the crib or the womb and let them die."
In an article she wrote years later, "Abortion and Rights: Applying Libertarian Principles Correctly," Gordon
reasoned: "A child's creation and presence in the womb are caused by biological forces independent and beyond the
control of the child; they are brought into play by the acts of the parents. The cause and effect relationship
between heterosexual intercourse and pregnancy is well-known."
"The parent-child situation is unique," she continues. "It is the only human relationship that begins by one side
bringing the other into existence. This fact of parental agency refutes any assertion that the child is a
trespasser, a parasite, or an aggressor of any sort. Prenatal children have the right under justice to be in the
mother's body, and both parents owe them support and protection from harm."
Gordon understood Branden's argument for parental obligation was about born children only, but she wrote to him to
ask whether it could apply, in principle, to children before they are born. He wrote back saying it can't because
they are not yet human beings. She wrote back to Branden asking him for his definition of "human being," but he
never replied.
Gordon, a member of the Association of Libertarian Feminists (ALF), agreed to handle publicity for a panel
discussion the group was planning for the 1976 Libertarian Convention. By the time the convention rolled around,
Gordon had become a pro-lifer, and tried to talk about abortion and her move to the "other side" to Sharon
Presley, one of ALF's founders and a pro-choicer. Presley, who was setting up an exhibit table, brushed Gordon
off, claiming she was tired and had not given much thought to the debate, which shocked Gordon. Presley suggested
Gordon talk to her expert on the topic, Lucinda Cisler, who was one of the organizers of the New York chapter of
NARAL, originally the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. "That was Strike One," Gordon said.
Then Gordon saw Branden at the convention, approached him, and mentioned her letters to him. "I asked him again
how he would define 'human being,'" she remembers. "Instead of defining the term, he said, 'How would you feel if
your 15-year-old daughter got pregnant?' He evaded my question. One of the most evil things you can do in
objectivism is evade the question. And he added further remarks that made me feel as if he had taken everything he
had taught me and thrown it out the window. That was Strike Two."
Later that day, Gordon attended an ALF panel at which Cisler defended unrestricted abortion. Gordon recalls:
"When it ended, I ran after her and asked if she could please answer one question for me. She stopped and turned
to me. 'Is a fetus a human being?' I asked. She said, 'Yes,' and walked on. Strike Three."
The experience inspired Gordon to join with other like-minded libertarians to form Libertarians for Life (LFL).
"LFL was different from other pro-life organizations in that we seemed to be alone in focusing on why the so-called
woman's right to control her own body is false," she said of her group.
[Leslie Fain also interviewed Nat Hentoff and Francis Beckwith for this article. To continue reading, please go
to the publisher's website by clicking on
Special Report35]
About the Author
Leslie Fain is a freelance writer who lives in Louisiana with her husband and three sons.
http://www.l4l.org/library/fain.html
http://www.libertariansforlife.org/library/fain.html
