No food or water had passed her lips for some time, as she was on a feeding tube and in a persistent vegetative state. Her mind was dead, and her body was being kept alive by artificial means. Keeping her body alive or not was a decision to be made by the family and doctors. Since there was a dispute between the husband and the parents, a court had to settle the case.
Since the state has decided that a human becomes a human at birth, the state gets involved after that time. If you think it should be involved sooner, then by all means continue to speak out against legalized abortion.
What puzzles me about the abortion question is this:
If a human being is nothing but a body, then life does indeed begin at conception. Therefore, one would expect that abortion would be opposed by the atheist community. If, on the other hand, a human being is a soul in possession of a body, then life doesn't begin, as the soul has always been alive and is simply entering a new phase of existence when gaining a body. Therefore, earthly life begins when the soul enters the body. No one really knows when that happens, of course, but if one body is aborted, there will be more, so stopping a pregnancy is not the same as ending a life.
So, religious people should be the ones who have no objection to abortion.
So, why is it the religious who oppose legal abortion, while the agnostics are not opposed?
