Kristine Kruszelnicki+Posted by on Apr 17, 2015 in Being a Pro-Life Atheist |

Dear pro-choice atheists: Atheism is not your clubhouse. You don’t get to decide who can or can’t be an atheist and who gets to partake of the atheist community, be it its conferences, its blogs, or its online forums. Yes, pro-life atheists are a minority (19% of the non-religious identify as pro-life) but that doesn’t mean those of you in the majority get to bully us into silence and absenteeism!

I recently attended my second American Atheist Convention and for the most part it was a positive experience. Those who came by our table found reasoned and philosophical discussion about human rights and whether or not the right to the bodily autonomy of one can supercede the right to life of another. They shared their arguments and I told them why I believe it’s inaccurate to compare pregnancy to forced organ donation. Most of them left with a smile, hug or handshake, as well as with a “Thwart, Don’t Abort” condom, and I believe the exchanges overall were mutually civil and often quite pleasant.

Unfortunately, not all pro-choice atheists at the convention responded to us with the same open-minded grace. While some simply ignored our table or made sour-milk faces at us as they hurried by, one young woman tried to rub her pro-choice majority in our face by putting up a Planned Parenthood donation box right next to our table. It wasn’t an original gesture (as a reaction against our presence, someone had done it in 2012 when I’d tabled with Secular Pro-Life) but it’s still just as rude: Imagine being a meat eater and setting up a donation box to a slaughterhouse right next to a Vegan table just to spite them.*

“We already know we’re in the minority here,” I told her gently as she set up her donation bag (on my new pro-choice friend’s table, no less) “Why do you feel the need to further mark the division between us, where we’ve mostly had a spirit of diversity and open discussion all day?” Her response to my question was a diatribe so hot and angry that it prompted her organization’s leader to later make an apology on her behalf. Like many I’d chatted with that weekend, I appreciated the leader’s affirmation of diversity among atheists. Still, the intense animosity of the young woman had been nonetheless disappointing.

There are some among you, my dear atheist peers, who think being secular means making a world of people who think exactly like you. Those like atheist blogger Greta Christina who a couple days ago wrote an open letter to American Atheists disparaging them for “courting atheist conservatives”. For the record, I and most of Pro-Life Humanists’ members are quite left wing on most issues (most of us identify as anti-death-penalty, pro-GLBT rights, anti-war, pro-welfare & state-funded daycare, pro right-to-die so long as the dying person makes the choice, anti non-consensual genital alteration, and anti-violence overall – which is why we side against the violent choice of abortion) … but even if our pro-life views came from a larger Conservative philosophy, who gets to decide that we don’t belong in your events? When did atheism become yours anyway? Sorry, but I must’ve missed the conference where we elected the Atheist Pope and agreed on a Catechism of acceptable Atheist views and doctrines.

When Christians lose their faith and come to atheism, sociologists like Phil Zuckerman have demonstrated that most leave religion only after first falling out of step with their church’s conservative values. This creates the illusion that atheist = liberal, but only because liberals are more likely to abandon the religion that doesn’t match their values. On the other hand, a growing number of people are leaving religion not because their values conflict with their church, but rather because they take issue with the mythologies and so-called sacred writings themselves. Values which hinged on those writings (standards of sexuality & hetero marriage, for example) usually get tossed or significantly modified, while values like human rights, which were already grounded in a larger philosophy of non-violence and in our understanding of human bodies’ biological beginnings, remain with us. Becoming secular doesn’t mean we all start thinking alike and churning out cloned liberal conclusions. It merely means that when we talk about the social issues that divide society, our discussions will no longer be clouded by religious gobbledygook. Atheists have collectively eliminated the red herring, but that’s not the same thing as having correctly solved all of society’s moral mysteries.

It’s time to stop giving conservatives and pro-lifers the cold shoulder. My irony metre nearly broke when I heard the same young woman who’d so vehemently opposed the presence of pro-life atheists in the exhibit room, later that day bemoan over a secular podcast just how badly it hurt to be ostracized by her ethnic community for being in a non-believing minority. Pro-life atheists bleed the same hurts you do! Many of us have likewise been cut off from very religious friends and family or are unable to spend time alone with our own nieces and nephews because our family fears we might try to dissuade them from their young faiths. And so long as you’re concerned with not “alienating the millions of female atheists”, remember that most pro-life atheist leaders are females – and we don’t take kindly to being alienated by you either. We come to the atheist community for the same sense of family and fellowship all atheists do – except unlike other minorities within atheism, pro-life atheists find ourselves being ostracized further and sometimes yelled at, simply because we support rights for humanity’s pre-born.

Last I checked, American Atheists was not called “American Pro-Choice Atheists”. Neither is there a group out there called “Center for Inquiry on Everything but Abortion” nor an online forum for “The Thinking Pro-Choice Atheists Who Won’t Think About Pro-Life Arguments” etc. So please stop moaning that people who are different than you are being allowed into your club. Atheism isn’t your clubhouse. It’s our clubhouse – the atheist community belongs to all of us!

—–

* In the spirit of inclusivity, I’m hoping that American Atheists will select a less divisive charity than Planned Parenthood for future charity events held officially by the conference. Women’s shelter, food bank, animal rescue, children’s hospital, low-income reading program… we have common ground to work with!

Liked our post? We are only able to do this with the financial support of readers like you. Help us to continue to speak out in the community for the pre-born!

Like it? Share it... Pinterest Reddit Digg Linkedin Tumblr StumbleUpon email