Religious Believer's More Likely To Recognise Sanctity of Life

Since I have been involved in counselling women who are planning an abortion, I have become more and more aware that a woman with a religious belief is far more likely, ultimately, to keep her baby than an atheist in the same situation.

I meet many people, including many pro-lifers and many Catholics who swear this is not so. But statistically all the evidence suggests it really is.

OK, we all know a really good atheist, and we can look at their high standards and moral values and feel that being pro-life is not a religious issue.

Likewise we all know Christians, and other believers, ourselves included, who constantly fall short of the mark in our beliefs and our behaviour, in little ways and in big ways.

We may know many religious people who have had abortions for example.

But nevertheless, there is a vast difference in talking to a woman who is planning an abortion if she believes in God and talking to her if she doesn't. And their is a vast difference between a nominal "believer" and someone who really believes in God with their heart and soul.

Simply put, the believer sees the unborn child as a child of God, created for a purpose, and created to be her child. Furthermore, the believer sees the child as someone with an immortal soul, who will not 'end' when the abortion happens, but who they may one day meet again face to face. Lastly, the believer knows that one day they will face God and have to account for this deed. They, therefore, have much more than the 'here and now' to consider in aborting this baby.

The atheist may respect life and want to spare the child the physical pain of abortion. But where there are real difficulties involved in having the baby, if they can be assured that their baby will not feel pain (a lie women are often told when aborting) they can consider the worldly sufferings the child could endure if born to be their paramount concern.

Despite this, it is true that sometimes the Christian woman, for example, may abort, and the atheist may keep her baby. But this does not disprove the general rule that the believer can more readily recognise the incalculable worth of the soul created by God and then, therefore, treat it with the respect due, where the atheist often cannot.

Therefore it came as no surprise to read Thursday's Guardian article: "Atheist Doctors 'more likely to hasten death' ". The article goes on to say;

Doctors who are atheist or agnostic are twice as likely to take decisions that might shorten the life of somebody who is terminally ill as doctors who are deeply religious – and doctors with strong religious convictions are less likely even to discuss such decisions with the patient, according to Professor Clive Seale, from the centre for health sciences at Barts and the London school of medicine and dentistry.

After all, how could an atheist be expected to appreciate that God has numbered our days, and permits us the grace of exactly the right number of days, and exactly the right amount of suffering for us to be able to work out our own salvation?

Apologies to good-hearted atheists who do respect life. But in my experience, the odds are stacked against them doing so.

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Clare McCullough