A Polemic – Which Is the Greater Sin?

I really do not believe in the concept of sin, at least in sin as defined in the Christian Bible.  The idea that there is a god that will condemn the soul of one of his creations to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity for some behavior during their all too short life span is more than I can give credence to. But then I also do not believe in the concept of heaven or hell.  I have no idea if we have a soul or not, the rational part of me believes that death is simply the extinguishing of a light, no big deal.

However, I do believe that there are any number of human behaviors and actions that can be classified as “sins”. For me a sin is any action or behavior that damages another being either physically, mentally or emotionally.  I would also put into the definition harming the environment, the planet, the overuse of resources, basically any unethical behavior that reaches a hard to define level of harm.

Morals are easier to define as they generally are encapsulated in religious texts.  Of course the devil is in the details, in how you interpret those texts. Ethics are harder as they are socially dependent and can vary with group and time. In reality morals change too as different cultures and different time periods interpret the religious texts differently. For me the clearest, most reasonable expression of ethics is from the American Humanist Society Manifesto. You can certainly be moral without being ethical, as well as ethical without being moral.

What has gotten my thoughts down this rabbit hole is the very real possibility that Roe v. Wade may be overturned.  There are so many things wrong with this that it is hard to know where to begin.  I will start with the statement that I do not believe abortion to be wrong, it may be an immoral act for a particular group, but this does not make it immoral, unethical and especially not sinful for other groups. The majority of Americans, around 75%, believe women should have legal access to abortion¹.  Are we to argue 75% of Americans support immorality? The other big religious argument is that the soul enters the body at conception.  There is a very wide diversity of religious opinion² on this, some religions saying it is several months after conception.  One Danish study found that about half of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion³.  If I were religious this single fact would make it problematic for me to state that the soul enters the body at conception.  Why would God put a soul into a non-viable embryo? The Christianity that I learned does not recycle souls.

The question in the title of this posting is which is the greater sin, so to my questions:

• Is abortion a bigger sin than taking control of a woman’s body away for her?
• Is abortion a bigger sin than bringing an unwanted child into world?
• Is abortion a bigger sin than bringing into this world a child you cannot take care of?
• Is abortion a bigger sin than forcing a woman through a pregnancy caused by a forcible act, then forcing her to raise the child of that crime?
• Is abortion a bigger sin than knowingly bringing into life a child with any number of severe medical/development issues?
• Is abortion a bigger sin than forcing a woman to endure a pregnancy that threatens her life or endangers her health?
• Are abortion and no contraceptives bigger sins than a population growth that is wrecking havoc on the planet and the future of the human race?

For me the answer to all those questions is an unequivocal NO.

If all children were wanted, were born to a parent or parents capable of caring for them, to people with an adequate skill set to be parents, I really wonder if our foster care system would be overflowing.

I am not advocating abortion as a primary method of birth control, but that it is an option women must have.  I cannot believe it is an easy decision for the vast majority of women, but still it must be a choice available. In my world, all woman globally who wanted access to the morning after pill would have it.  Again many groups are arguing this is simply another form of abortion.

Imagine what would happen if somehow Sharia law was forced on this country.  We have done a fairly, fairly reasonable job in the past in allowing many different religions to flourish here, why are the fundamentalist and the conservative right in a headlong rush to create a theocracy?  I regard this as a sin. While not religious myself, I have long tried to go by “live and let live” with religious folks, the converse does not seem to be true.  Many of them feel a duty to evangelize their religious beliefs, to force their morals on the larger group. I simply find that sinful.

This is very much a polemical posting.  I meant for it to be so. The current Supreme Court and the Republican Party are a travesty, and I frequently find them more than I can abide. I cannot believe we are on the cusp of overturning Roe v. Wade.  It blows my mind and saddens me beyond description.  No one is forcing women to have abortions, but preventing them from doing so is another travesty.   What is even sadder is that many of these same groups that are opposed to abortion are also opposed to contraception (Catholic Church) and sex education (practically any fundamentalist religion).  These folks just need to come to grips on the fact that sex is fun and people are going to do it.

My daily prayer has become, Please Dear God save us from the religious.

And yes I put my money where my mouth is.  I have my bank account set up to donate automatically each month to Planned Parenthood. You can also donate by following their link: Planned Parenthood

Footnotes:

1. Poll: Majority Want To Keep Abortion Legal, But They Also Want Restrictions
2. Religious Groups’ Official Positions on Abortion
3. New Research Shows Most Human Pregnancies End in Miscarriage

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