Hello there, I'm an atheist

[mattrose]

To posit an external source as required you would have to meet the burden of proof to demonstrate such a source exists. I recognize you believe but you have essentially taken the wind out of the sails of your earlier comment that no, nonthestic, morality code seems compelling to you. You have set the bar at a level no nonthestic code can match. It would be like my demanding scientific proof of magic.

An external source for morality simply IS required for a true sense of moral obligation (as opposed to motivation). If the bar is set at a level no atheistic apologists can match, they should simply admit that they don't think an actual 'obligation' is very important. Thankfully, that is exactly what you actually do in the quote below...

Obligation generally applies to a deontological theory of ethics. I'm offering a more consequentialist model. Still to put it roughly, if a set of actions outcomes can be reasonably predicted and the harm they cause outweighs the well being then it ought not to be followed. My right to swing my fist ends a bit before your face. However much I might enjoy swinging my fists around, the harm to your physical well being and emotional well being outweighs it. I ought not to hit you.

You're using the word 'ought' here, but you're really just saying that it makes more sense to do the thing that brings better consequences. I don't know if you actually want to get into a debate between deontological and consequentialist ethics. We may be at an impasse if we are both entrenched in such contrasting models. Needless to say, I think you have correctly identified that I'm in the former camp and you're in the latter. I'm sure you're already aware of the arguments against the consequentialist model.

I also see that you think I'm not well studied in Christianity. I warn you of the no true Scotsman fallacy. Be careful defining "true Christianity" However just to clear it up for you, I've read the bible, many versions, broadly though not completely. I've listened to apologists intently. I was educated in a christian school from 3rd grade through 8th. I attended an ELCA Lutheran church weekly for Sunday school, service and was confirmed as a member. I've talked deeply with pastors, preachers and adherents and continue to engage people I meet. As a general rule I know more about Christianity than the average person I engage with. I offer to you that if someone needs to know more than I know to get it right then the bar is set far, far too high for the stakes we are playing for. I'm curious though, is there something you can sum up or a few points you can list where you think my knowledge is lacking?

I have no doubt that you know more about Christianity than the average person. Perhaps my wording was poor. It could be that we just have very different epistemologies and you find weaknesses in the Christian worldview where I don't and I find weaknesses in the atheistic worldview where you don't. Of course, Christianity is not about getting the right amount of theologically information. It's about a relationship with God through Jesus. My point was that you've demonstrated a non-Christian understanding/expectation of any supposed deity.

As I said before, I reject belief in the same god you've rejected belief in. I have no problem with your atheism. I would love for you to know Christ. I would love for you to know the God who is primarily relational love. Who created the world not to express power and gain servants but to spread love. I'd love for you to know (not just intellectually, but through experience) the God who actually took on flesh, lived on this earth, died, overcame death, and gives His Spirit to His people.

You said, earlier, that to you it would be sweet if there actually was some form of eternal life. The good news is that the evidence actually suggests such a thing is possible. Jesus overcame death. There are historical arguments to support this (which I'm sure you'll want to debate).

[Homer]

Apos,

You wrote:

Abortion
I hold to a mother's right to choose. I do this even if I grant that a fetus is a person with the same rights any other person can reasonably expect. (I don't, but for the sake of this argument it doesn't matter). It isn't about inconvenience, as I just pointed out on another site, it is about bodily integrity. In order for me to insist that a mother carry the child to term, I need to agree that it is morally acceptable for one person to lose their right to bodily integrity to save the life of another. However I do not. I do not believe that it is right to require that someone give blood, or a kidney, or part of their liver, or any other part of their body if they are unwilling. Since I don't require this of any other person, to require it of the mother would be to fall to the fallacy of special pleading. If I insisted that the mother carry the child, I'd be giving the fetus rights to the mother's body, special rights over and above what any person can require of another person. I may choose to donate my blood, but you can not demand that I do so.

When you speak of the mother's "bodily integrity" it sounds as though you believe the mother should have the right to kill the baby right up to the moment of birth. But wouldn't "their right to bodily integrity" be no different than their right to their "time"? After all our time is limited and a baby certainly requires a lot of it. So under your system please explain why the mother shouldn't be allowed to kill the baby the day after birth. Or a week later, when she realizes how much of her time the baby takes? Or whenever. Certainly a baby has no more value to society when it is a week old than it did a week before birth.

[steve7150]

If I insisted that the mother carry the child, I'd be giving the fetus rights to the mother's body, special rights over and above what any person can require of another person. I may choose to donate my blood, but you can not demand that I do so.









Yes you would be giving the fetus rights to the mothers body, yet it was the mother that was partly responsible for creating the baby (except for rape). So thinking in reverse are you not giving the mother special rights in allowing her (legally) to kill the baby and isn't killing the baby a greater act then the baby sharing the mother's body temporarily.
So abortion really is only moral if the baby is not human, yet if the baby is human what is actually happening?

[dizerner]

@dizerner I agree there is no absolute standard of morality, or at least if there is one we have yet to discover it. I do think we can practice an objective standard of morality though, which is most certainly not moral relativism. Now this objective standard is still processed through our brains and language so we can, and will, make mistakes in how we interact with it. However it does give us a functional benchmark to measure actions up to. The difference between harm and well being expected from actions, and what has happened with similar actions and situations in the past to inform our decisions in the future. I recommend you check the link to Matt Dillahunty's speech I linked to up above. I'd like to know what you think of the idea.

I like Dillahunty in general he's one of the more fair atheists although he's a little blind to some of his own inconsisties still. I have watched the video and will comment on it.

"who decides what's best... well really nobody"

I thank God for most atheists morality, that they desire not to harm their fellow people. And to them morality begins and ends in there: the feeling that, "hey, I want to be a nice guy." (Sadly, for a lot of unthinking people who take the label "Christian" that is also where the depth of their thought begins and ends.) I actually don't have a problem with that as it stands, because at least it's not "hey, let's torment people we disagree with." They like to describe it as something like "Maximizing comfort for others, or making others thrive, or increasing well-being." At first glance this seems understandable and reasonable, but serious logical problems arise upon close analysis. How can we measure a person's real well being? How can we, when we are confronted with one person's well being at the cost of another's, judge whose well being should take priority and how much? Everyone has different ideas of what they want and what they need to give them "well being;" healthy rich people can be unhappy in life and poor sick people can have a deep peace and higher purpose. It might increase my well being significantly to have a personal harem of the world's most beautiful women, but I would imagine it would significantly decrease their well being, lol. This idea that we can measure and regulate "well being" seems to make everything physical and smacks of materialism (something I strongly disagree with and not just for religious reasons).

Matt did address motivation, but that assumes free will. I don't know exactly where he stands on that. Free will is necessarily a metaphysical thing (now in any debate, just as an aside, I think words do fail us a bit and we cross over into some metaphysical ideas; but that's another debate.) He cites "reality" as where he gets his morals, which is just complete question-begging and fuzzy definition. Most deep thinkers admit science not only does not, but can not, give us any ultimate reality or the actual essential substance of everything (It's all just our senses... whatever that is. We "see" a sunset but we don't really "see" anything fundamental about it, it simply interacts by effecting some senses we have.) He talks about "carrot and stick" motivation and (this is interesting to me) and starts valuing character merely for character's sake.

Now under materialism we can't help but be moral relativists, so what they end up doing is just saying "well I just *like* that and it *feels* good to me." We get a problem when something "feels good" that seems morally evil. We could even hypothesize a society where what we intuitively think of as good character now, is seen in a disparaging light, as stupid or weak or even evil, to be kind and caring and compassionate. His illustration of drivers on the road was pretty interesting. He merely then asserts "the secular system is better at getting better," whatever that means, lol. I know he thinks it means that its emphasis is on practical results, but the truth is, we observe that some group of people always get screwed by a majority decision. Sure it's a "rule of thumb" way to make a generalized improvement in mass social behavior to try to measure what produces less "harm," however you define it. But that also never examines the real proof or definition or reason to believe in or measure any kind of morality to begin with.

When a religious person talks about absolute transcendent morality, I feel that underneath, they are less talking about a rigid understandable system of rules (though many will say this), but the fact that some evil acts seem transcendent, and anger us so deeply it seems beyond words. I'm amazed at a shared morality I've observed in people wanting to stop intense personal harm to innocent defenseless victims. This seems deep within us, and I know you can blame it on evolution (but that requires more thought). But when a person doesn't have that; when they actually instead have the opposite of that, they delight in the intense personal harm to the most innocent and vulnerable, it's so deeply disturbing it's hard to just brush it off as "oh, well evolution kinda messed up here" (as if evolution cared one whit, lol). But it makes you stop... it makes you pause. This level of intentional harm can make you so upset that you want to reach out to something transcendent... something shouldn't allow this... this action goes beyond what should ever be. Deep evil brings an awareness in us of the transcendent. We can shake our fist at the "imaginary" God and say "Why, God, why.. you sure are a cunt." We can throw away all idea that a God might exist and say "This proves there is no God. No God could allow this." But the very fact that we think it can affect whether a God or not exists, says we feel this action has somehow crossed over—it has broken something in our world and in our heart. It's crossed a boundary that should never be crossed.

But I disagree with a lot of normal religious debating about morality, and even strongly disagree with a lot of religious arguments as much as atheists do. I don't think OT or NT rules of morality prove anything or show us anything in the logical realm. I don't think a theoretical absolute morality somehow proves a God. But I do think something deep inside us, that we can't explain, can make us aware of metaphysical truths about ourselves, truths about good and evil, right and wrong, and holiness and sin. So I really have to disagree with his conclusion "You can come to correct moral assessments through purely secular means." I realize atheists only see morality as horizontal; it's the religious that add in vertical morality. And Hitchens might claim "I can do any good moral deed that the most religious in the world can do," or Dillahunty can claim "atheists can clearly be as moral or more so than Christians," but those definitions are far more difficult than they are implying. How do we know, if we help an old lady across the street, that if we saw a car hit her we might laugh before we feel compassion? It seems preposterous but it illustrates something vividly: we can have right actions while hiding something in us that really doesn't care much. We can do right things for the wrong reasons. And that makes morality a spiritual thing that we can never appropriately measure through scientific or physical means.

[ApostateltsopA]

@mattrose,

I think we're actually down to presuppositions. You seem to presuppose that god and Jesus exist, and I do not. If I looked at them from a presupposition of their existence my objections would seem petty and hubristic. However I can't choose to presuppose that. In fact I did once believe exactly that, and in much the same way you seem to. However the more I thought about it, and looked at it, the less and less I believed until one day I didn't believe at all. Now, in order to believe, I need evidence or a really solid argument. I've been looking but I can not locate one. It may be that those who seek shall find, and I simply haven't found yet, however it seems more like that was not a true statement.

Apos,

You wrote:

Abortion
I hold to a mother's right to choose. I do this even if I grant that a fetus is a person with the same rights any other person can reasonably expect. (I don't, but for the sake of this argument it doesn't matter). It isn't about inconvenience, as I just pointed out on another site, it is about bodily integrity. In order for me to insist that a mother carry the child to term, I need to agree that it is morally acceptable for one person to lose their right to bodily integrity to save the life of another. However I do not. I do not believe that it is right to require that someone give blood, or a kidney, or part of their liver, or any other part of their body if they are unwilling. Since I don't require this of any other person, to require it of the mother would be to fall to the fallacy of special pleading. If I insisted that the mother carry the child, I'd be giving the fetus rights to the mother's body, special rights over and above what any person can require of another person. I may choose to donate my blood, but you can not demand that I do so.

When you speak of the mother's "bodily integrity" it sounds as though you believe the mother should have the right to kill the baby right up to the moment of birth. But wouldn't "their right to bodily integrity" be no different than their right to their "time"? After all our time is limited and a baby certainly requires a lot of it. So under your system please explain why the mother shouldn't be allowed to kill the baby the day after birth. Or a week later, when she realizes how much of her time the baby takes? Or whenever. Certainly a baby has no more value to society when it is a week old than it did a week before birth.

I do not agree that a mother should have the right to kill the baby, but that she always has the right to have it removed from her body. If it is viable when removed, then it should be cared for and placed for adoption to be raised by one of the many qualified people who can not have children of their own. So no, not arguing for baby killing, arguing against body using. As a corollary, if a father had a child that was carried to term, but upon birth, required a blood transfusion. No one can compel the father to give that blood. No one can demand that another person give up a kidney, or liver or skin for skin grafts. We can't even demand hair. So you have to answer, why is pregnancy a special case for bodily demands? Why can we demand a mother has to offer her body when we don't make that same demand of anyone else? Do you feel I can force you to give plasma every day for nine months if it will save a life? The life of your child? If not, why are you apparently comfortable making a similar demand of mothers?

Yes you would be giving the fetus rights to the mothers body, yet it was the mother that was partly responsible for creating the baby (except for rape). So thinking in reverse are you not giving the mother special rights in allowing her (legally) to kill the baby and isn't killing the baby a greater act then the baby sharing the mother's body temporarily.
So abortion really is only moral if the baby is not human, yet if the baby is human what is actually happening?

As I said above, demanding that mothers carry a child is special pleading because we do not demand fathers give blood, or organs. A woman's body undergoes irrevocable changes from pregnancy. Our bodies are our most intrinsic possession. When you deny a person control of their body you are committing a great harm. Is it worse than murder? That is an unfair comparison. It isn't murder, it's refusal to save a life. So if you are in a car accident, and I come across you in need of medical help, it would be good of me to help you. However I am not legally required to help you. If help can be offered at low cost I'd argue that help ought to be offered, but pregnancy is not a low cost. Look at the language pro-life arguers use. They call abortion murder, and they call pregnancy an inconvenience. These are emotional words designed to maximize the perception of harm to the fetus and minimize the perception of harm to the mother. Its hyperbole.

However the argument that we only demand someone lose their right to bodily integrity in this one instance is rational. It illustrates that being pro life is hypocritical, unless other demands are made to save lives. If you do not believe that fathers should be forced to undergo physical changes and loss of freedom to their bodies to save a life, then you have embraced a fallacy.

On being human. A fetus is not more human than an arm, a tumor, or a brain dead body, unless it is viable. It is a mistake to argue for "human-ness", we let brain dead bodies die. We remove damaged limbs and cancer cells. They are all human. To argue a fetus is a special or different case evidence needs to be presented. In the case of a viable fetus, done, no problem put the poor kid up for adoption. Brain dead bodies, arms and cancer cells are all nonviable.

[mattrose]

@mattrose,

I think we're actually down to presuppositions. You seem to presuppose that god and Jesus exist, and I do not. If I looked at them from a presupposition of their existence my objections would seem petty and hubristic. However I can't choose to presuppose that. In fact I did once believe exactly that, and in much the same way you seem to. However the more I thought about it, and looked at it, the less and less I believed until one day I didn't believe at all. Now, in order to believe, I need evidence or a really solid argument. I've been looking but I can not locate one. It may be that those who seek shall find, and I simply haven't found yet, however it seems more like that was not a true statement.

I don't really understand your inclusion of "Jesus" on the question of existence. There's not a qualified historian in the world who denies Jesus' existence. If you claim to be an evidence-based thinker, you simply cannot deny Jesus' existence. Perhaps you meant that you don't believe everything the New Testament says about Jesus. I'd be really curious as to the basis for your picking and choosing what parts of the Gospel accounts are untrue. I consider evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be extremely strong. Do you believe the tomb was empty (a fact un-denied by antagonistic contemporaries)? Do you believe there were reports that He had appeared again (another fact un-denied by antagonistic contemporaries)? Can you explain the emergence of the early church and its zeal after the crucifixion without the resurrection? What is your explanation of the supposed resurrection? What actually happened in your view?

For me, the evidence starts with Jesus... His life, death, and resurrection. Since that evidence is strong, it causes the arguments for the existence of God to become more powerful. So it's not that I presuppose God's existence (though I don't think that would be foolish). It's that I'm convinced of the resurrection and that leads me to look at things differently.

[steve7150]

However the argument that we only demand someone lose their right to bodily integrity in this one instance is rational. It illustrates that being pro life is hypocritical, unless other demands are made to save lives. If you do not believe that fathers should be forced to undergo physical changes and loss of freedom to their bodies to save a life, then you have embraced a fallacy.









OK other demands often s/b required to save lives but two wrongs don't make abortion right. That means abortion is not the only wrong being done,so correct abortion and correct other injustices concerning the sanctity of innocent life.
I agree pregnancy is often a big burden on the women but again jumping to a different scenario concerning fathers changing their bodies seems bizarre and unrealistic to what are discussing. If I were dictator or king I would try my best to make it fair to women by any method within reason and I would do everything I could to help babies born in unpleasant circumstances. I would try everything to make things right as much as possible but the crux of the issue is not the extraneous issues you brought up but it is whether the unborn baby has his or her own rights to his or hers own body and life. If the unborn baby is a human being then it should have as many rights as the mother.

[Homer]

Apos wrote:

So you have to answer, why is pregnancy a special case for bodily demands? Why can we demand a mother has to offer her body when we don't make that same demand of anyone else? Do you feel I can force you to give plasma every day for nine months if it will save a life? The life of your child? If not, why are you apparently comfortable making a similar demand of mothers?

The mother is absolutely essential to preserve the life of the unborn baby. Plasma is obtained by many people voluntarily and unselfishly giving their blood. There is no substitute for the role of the mother. Your argument is invalid.

As I said above, demanding that mothers carry a child is special pleading because we do not demand fathers give blood, or organs. A woman's body undergoes irrevocable changes from pregnancy. Our bodies are our most intrinsic possession. When you deny a person control of their body you are committing a great harm. Is it worse than murder? That is an unfair comparison. It isn't murder, it's refusal to save a life.

Carrying a child to term is small potatoes indeed to what has been historically required of fathers and men in general. First of all, if you have a modicum of understanding the Christian ethic you would realize that the husband is to "love his wife as Christ loved His church". Jesus gave His life for His church. You are apparently too young to have any thought of the literally thousands of men who were required to serve in the military and gave their lives for the benefit of family and country. And you bring up "bodily integrity". I know I, and I think most any man, will perform a task where some danger is involved and would never consider exposing his wife to the danger. According to USA Bureau of Labor statistics, 2009, 92%
of occupational fatalities occurred to men. "Bodily integrity" doesn't compare to the father's life. Certainly today their are many men who do not deserve to be called "father". But this is because of sin and selfishness and doesn't give the mother the right to kill the baby.

However the argument that we only demand someone lose their right to bodily integrity in this one instance is rational. It illustrates that being pro life is hypocritical, unless other demands are made to save lives. If you do not believe that fathers should be forced to undergo physical changes and loss of freedom to their bodies to save a life, then you have embraced a fallacy.

"Forced to undergo physical changes and loss of freedom"? See above regarding military service where both freedom and life were lost. Not meaning to insult, but your arguments regarding ethics in this instance are very weak. But you do not have much to work with and so not much was expected.

Regarding abortion let's get real. The vast majority are not performed because of the health of the mother. If Christ's moral teaching could be summed up in a few words it would be to think of the welfare of others as much as yourself. Do not be selfish. It is difficult to think of anything more selfish than a woman killing her baby. And we commonly recognize the unborn child as a baby. How many times have you heard parents-to-be excitedly talking about seeing the sonogram of their baby girl or boy? Ever heard them exclaim about their girl "fetus"? No, that "fetus" talk is reserved for those politically correct people who want to kill the baby.

Beans cause gas, its a natural process. If you don't want gas and a belly ache don't eat beans. Likewise pregnancy. Its a natural process also. If you don't want to carry a baby to term then avoid the behavior that brings it about.

In case you think I am hard hearted, as a hierarchicalist (sometimes called graded absolutist) I can sympathize with the argument that the actual life of the mother ranks higher than the potential life of the child. But that conflict is almost never the case.

[ApostateltsopA]

@ dizerner

I don't think it is a fair characterization of my morality to reduce it to "Hey I want to be a nice guy." There is quite a lot more going on than that. You attempted to downplay the use of Well Being and Harm as guide posts. It is true that these are not empirical measurements in the same sense as joules or megabites however they are able to be measured in relation to like things. We can reasonably state that murder is a greater harm than insulting is. We can say that well being requires things like shelter, food and drink. So to arbitrarily dismiss them is inaccurate. Then you made this claim,

Now under materialism we can't help but be moral relativists

You didn't back that up though, you just stated it and then moved on. However this is not anything like certain. I am proposing an objective moral code, allowing for the subjective nature of human minds. I hope you will agree that without a mind there is no morality. Rocks and wind can do no evil or good, they just are. People though can behave morally or immorally and we can establish an objective about how we codify these things. That ability is at the core of the idea of law.

I will agree morality is not objective in the same sense as gravity or inertia. However that is not to say all morality is relativism.

My point was that you've demonstrated a non-Christian understanding/expectation of any supposed deity.

I don't think I could have a christian understanding of a deity without being christian, and probably a similar flavor to your Christianity. I do feel I understand where you are coming from and it makes sense that if you are happy in faith that my objections may seem off to you.

I would love for you to know Christ. I would love for you to know the God who is primarily relational love. Who created the world not to express power and gain servants but to spread love. I'd love for you to know (not just intellectually, but through experience) the God who actually took on flesh, lived on this earth, died, overcame death, and gives His Spirit to His people.

I wonder how you hold that image in your mind. I do not believe that torture and blood sacrifice solve problems, but that is the story of Jesus. I remember feeling deeply grateful for his sacrifice, but in those days I didn't question why, why should anyone have to be tortured because of sin? Why would innocent suffering be considered a solution to the anger of god? Have you read deeply in the more unsavory parts of the Bible? What do you think about the slavery or the genocide or the rape? Why would god accept the sacrifice of Jeptha's daughter? Why was he jealous, and so full of anger, wrath and vengeance? Those stories didn't fit the narrative of a loving god I grew up with. They don't make sense, unless the book was written by people, ignorant people. Then it all fits. At least for me.

Finally, I do doubt the existence of Jesus. I'm not as studied as I would like to be so I make no claims. He may have existed, he may not have. If you have any contemporary references to him, outside the bible, I'd like to know about them. As far as I have been able to tell he is not mentioned anywhere but the gospels until much later when Christianity was more established.

I agree pregnancy is often a big burden on the women but again jumping to a different scenario concerning fathers changing their bodies seems bizarre and unrealistic to what are discussing.

I think it seems bizarre to you because in the case of a father you recognize the right to bodily integrity. The reason I pointed it out is because it is a double standard. If the only reason to stop an aborting is to "Save a life" then the person making that argument is stating that saving a life is more important than the right of bodily integrity. If you want to embrace that argument then you need to take it to it's logical conclusion which results in loss of freedom for everyone whose body can be used to save a life. Since you find requiring that of fathers bizarre I suggest you have some cognitive dissonance on this issue.

The mother is absolutely essential to preserve the life of the unborn baby. Plasma is obtained by many people voluntarily and unselfishly giving their blood. There is no substitute for the role of the mother. Your argument is invalid.

No it isn't, you just want it to be. Lots of times lives can be saved if someone were to give up part of themselves. Motherhood is not the only place where a downer is required to save a life and people die every year waiting on organ donation lists.

Carrying a child to term is small potatoes indeed to what has been historically required of fathers and men in general.

We are not talking about what has historically been required of men. This whole line is a total nonsequiter. I show you and injustice perpetrated against women, and you say effectively, "but what about the men?" That is a derail of the topic. What men have endured in the past has no bearing on what women may be forced to do in the future. Though since you seem so hung up on it, I support women's right to be in the military in combat roles and believe that any draft should be pulled from eligible persons of every gender.

You keep saying my argument is weak, but instead of refuting it you are dancing away from it. Engage the argument, under what circumstances to you believe it is ok to remove a person's right to bodily autonomy? If the circumstance is "to save a life" then you should be ok with demanding the bodies of anyone for that process. Since you clearly are not ok with that, you should accept that "to save a life" is not sufficient reason to deny someone's rights and come up with a better reason to oppose abortion. Or, you could come to my side and join pro choice.

Regarding abortion let's get real. The vast majority are not performed because of the health of the mother. If Christ's moral teaching could be summed up in a few words it would be to think of the welfare of others as much as yourself. Do not be selfish. It is difficult to think of anything more selfish than a woman killing her baby. And we commonly recognize the unborn child as a baby. How many times have you heard parents-to-be excitedly talking about seeing the sonogram of their baby girl or boy? Ever heard them exclaim about their girl "fetus"? No, that "fetus" talk is reserved for those politically correct people who want to kill the baby.

I'm being very real. I never offered a motive as necessary for removing an unwanted pregnancy. There doesn't need to be one, as I see the woman has the right to her body and what will or will not happen to it. Christ's views on charity were foolish. Regularly in the bible characters give all they have, and then face starvation or worse. It is said that God will shelter the believers, but they die just like anyone else who runs out of means to support themselves. Islam, in this instance, has a better view of charity. It says that it is good to give, but never give so much that you harm yourself in the giving. If you cause such harm to yourself you will eventually be the one in need of charity and that does not help society.

People differentiate fetus and baby because there is a difference. At the stage of most abortions the fetus is little more than a clump of cells. It isn't a person at that time. It has no rights. However my argument is not about fetal rights, it's about a mother's right to her body. Please engage that instead of running on tangents.

Beans cause gas, its a natural process. If you don't want gas and a belly ache don't eat beans. Likewise pregnancy. Its a natural process also. If you don't want to carry a baby to term then avoid the behavior that brings it about.

Cancer is a natural process in which human tissue is destroyed. This comment makes it look like you are more interested in punishing people who had sex, than in protecting lives. I know lots of people are hung up on moral issues regarding sex. However, not being a virgin does not mean a loss of rights. It doesn't make someone a bad person.

[dizerner]

We can reasonably state that murder is a greater harm than insulting is.

I've known atheists that disagreed with this. Once murder is committed, what does it matter? No conscious entity is in pain anymore. But words can hurt us with deep emotional pain we live with every day, while the murdered is simply in nonexistent bliss. We could measure the sorrow of the murdered person's loved ones, but what if no one knew the person? Do you see how even things you think are obvious aren't really?