"Perhaps he (McCain) honestly cares about reducing the number of abortions. If so, he might want to encourage broad access to contraception an sex education..." writes Joe Conason.

I'm a pro-life Democrat. I support contraception and sex education to reduce the number of abortions. I'm pro-life but also believe in a complete separation of church and state. I've contributed heavily to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, while asking Rev. Barry Lynn (Executive Director) to keep the organization neutral on this divisive issue, rather than take a pro-choice stance.

Writer and activist Jean Blackwood, in the July 1993 issue of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" publication on the religious Left, notes:

"Many of the young people who make up the animal rights and environmental movement grew up with pro-abortion rhetoric in their ears. They can make the mental shift from banning CFCs, outlawing whaling, and abolishing clearcuts to 'a woman's right to choose' with such alacrity that one might suspect no self-contradiction was involved."

For many young people today, abortion is just another choice; just another form of birth control. Will they be more inclined to listen to a secular moral philosophy that doesn't dictate their sexual behavior or intrude upon their private life, or a set of unprovable religious beliefs that does?

There ARE non-traditional pro-life groups that make up "The Left Side of the March" on the March on Washington, every January 22nd, in D.C.: Vegans for Life, Democrats for Life, Feminists for Life, the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (PLAGAL), etc. I'm not sure if Atheists for Life is included, but Rachel MacNair, a Quaker pacifist, vegan, psychology professor and past president of Feminists For Life, once pointed out that there are pro-life atheists who argue that since there is no afterlife, life is especially precious.

(This argument is also used by Reverend Andrew Linzey in his 1987 book, Christianity and the Rights of Animals against Christians who claim animals don't have souls: if there is no afterlife for animals and they are not to be compensated in an afterlife for the sufferings we inflict upon them now, then there is no justification for causing them pain.)

My friend James Dawson, a practicing Theravadin Buddhist, used to publish Live and Let Live, a pro-life, animal rights, Libertarian 'zine. Someone once wrote in, and referred to Libertarians as "Republicans who do drugs." (Rachel MacNair broke up laughing when I told her this!) Shay Van Vliemen, President of Vegans for Life, wrote on an e-mail list for pro-life vegetarians and vegans in the late 1990s, that she doesn't expect to see a vegan president in her lifetime--she would just be glad to have a pro-life president who would work to overturn Roe v. Wade. And she insisted she is NOT a Republican, but a Libertarian.

Respected pro-life columnist Nat Hentoff, of The Village Voice, is a self-described "liberal Jewish atheist". Not your stereotypical pro-lifer! When Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a physician who presided over some 60,000 abortions before changing sides on the issue, wrote Aborting America in 1979, he was an atheist. He has since become a Christian. One thing the pro-life movement desperately needs is religious diversity. It's already stereotyped as being Christian (born again, Catholic, fundamentalist, etc.). I mentioned this to James Dawson when he was about to write to Dr. Nathanson about information on contraception. It caused James to write to Doris Gordon of Libertarians for Life (who, like Hentoff, is also a Jewish atheist) for the information.

The pro-life movement is also going to have to become completely secular, as it attempts to convince the American public, the courts, the legislatures, universities, philosophers, ethicists, etc. that human zygotes and embryos should be regarded as legal persons. (Conversely, the animal rights movement is secular and nonsectarian, but will need the inspiration, blessings and support of organized religion to help end injustices towards animals.)

In England, where animal rights are more accepted (the Animals' Agenda once ran an article about how animal activists in the U.S. look to England as an example of where we might be twenty or thirty years from now), there are organizations such as PEACH (Peace, Ethics, Animals and Consistent Human rights) and Lifelink which oppose abortion and support animal rights.

Nat Hentoff appears on a Seamless Garment video from the early '90s. In it, he says that he came to the realization that abortion is the taking of human life, rather than, say, killing a bird or an insect. While I respect him for opposing abortion (a courageous thing to do for those of us on the Left!), his argument (like that of the pro-life position) is essentially speciesist. We protect a human zygote for no other reason than it has human chromosomes.

A contemporary Hindu spiritual master, Srila Hridayanada dasa Goswami discusses the hypocrisy of claiming to be "pro-life" while killing animals. He writes:

"Insisting that human life begins at conception, the anti-abortion movement seeks to shock us into the awareness that abortion means killing--killing a human being rather than an animal, a bird, an insect, or a fish. Thus although the movement calls itself 'pro-life', it is really pro-human-life. Its fudging with the terms 'life' and 'human life' reveals a disturbing assumption: that nonhuman life is somehow not actually life at all, or if it is, then it is somehow not as 'sacred' as human life and therefore not worth protecting... If the pro-life movement can become part of a broader struggle to recognize the sacredness of all life...then undoubtedly it will attain great success."

Had Dennis Kucinich remained pro-life, I would have voted for him. There are many pro-life liberals and non-traditional pro-lifers. Again, I support contraception and sex education to reduce the number of abortions.