The Secular Case against Abortion

National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke writes a fantastic commentary on abortion.

I have been opposed to abortion since the very first moment I learned of it. For me, it is a pre-political and pre-ideological opposition. Growing up, I was neither knowledgeable about, nor much interested in, the broader world around me, but I knew one thing: I was against killing babies, and I did not understand those who were not.

I was not led to this position. Indeed, if anything, I arrived at it despite my environment, not because of it. In England, most people are pro-choice, and, insofar as the topic ever comes up, it is within a context that has never had any purchase on me: religion. As a staunch defender of conscience, I am friendly towards, and respectful of, religious believers. But I am not one myself, I have never been one myself, and I am not close to being one myself. Naturally, I am grateful to the religious traditions in which I was raised indirectly, and I am fully aware of the monumental influence that they have had upon the worldview that I spend my days defending. But I do not accept the metaphysical claims that it would be incumbent upon me to accept if I were to convert. I don’t believe in heaven, or hell, or the soul, or miracles, or the power of intercessory prayer — or in God, for that matter. I think that humans are exceptional and precious and worthy of unalienable rights, but I do not rest this upon anything supernatural.

Read the rest at National Review.