Abortions are not permissible within certain religious beliefs

The argument

On this view the unborn child is not a potential human being but a human being already, and one whose existence is God's work rather than anyone else's. Proponents hold that life is created by God and belongs to God from its beginning, which is what is meant by the sanctity of human life: the child's worth does not depend on its stage of development, on whether it is wanted, or on what it can yet do, because that worth was conferred by its creator and not by any human judgement. Two things follow. The first concerns the act itself. To end such a life is to destroy what God has made and to treat as disposable something whose value was never ours to assess. In this framing it is a failure of respect for the sanctity of life rather than a medical decision among others. The second concerns who is entitled to decide, and this is where proponents locate the deeper objection. Matters of life and death lie exclusively within God's remit. Human beings are stewards of life rather than its owners, and the authority to determine when a life begins or ends was never delegated to them. To choose abortion is therefore to presume an authority one does not possess — an arrogance, as this position describes it, in claiming for oneself a judgement reserved to God. Because the wrong is understood as the taking of a life and the usurping of divine authority, rather than as a private failing within one faith, proponents conclude that it cannot be left to individual conscience any more than other killings are. A society that recognises the sanctity of human life should extend the law's protection to the unborn, and abortion should be illegal.

Context

The decision to take a life is God's alone to make. Any instance of a human taking another human's life is immoral and wrong.

Premises

Counter-arguments

This argument holds weight in countries where the legal system is linked to a religious entity. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, where the state is based on its interpretation of Islamic laws, this view of abortion is understandable, for example. However, in most Western societies, our government prides itself on its secular philosophy. The modern secular society has a state free from religious influence and considers religious institutions as an entirely separate institution. Therefore, to prohibit abortion on religious grounds would be a violation of Western democracy's secular principles. It would be an example of religious ideology influencing matters of government, a practice most Western societies abandoned during the Age of Enlightenment.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] This religious ideology has no place in dictating government policy in secular society.