For the first time since Gallup launched a poll on the topic of religion, those who say they belong to a church, synagogue, mosque or congregation are now a minority in America. When Gallup first asked the question in 1990, 70% of all Americans indicated that they belonged to a place of worship. Now only 47% do, a seismic shift in sentiment – ​​and the country’s religious commitments.

In addition, one in three young adults said they claim no religious affiliation. Since 2000, there has been an overall increase in the number of those who say they do not identify with any religion – from 8% to 21%.

In the face of this remarkable detachment from religious identity, an interesting dynamic has emerged: those unaffiliated with religion are increasingly serving as activists and leaders in movements for social change and justice.

Historically, social justice initiatives have gained momentum and strength with those motivated by their religious beliefs (think Reverend Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day and Desmond Tutu). But it is also true that such religious beliefs are not necessary to participate in causes that uphold human rights and dignity and oppose the abuse of vulnerable people.

Today’s modern effort to restore legal protection to unborn children includes secular humanists, atheists, agnostics, and other non-religious people. To the surprise of much of the media, non-religious pro-life advocates claimed a growing presence in the pro-life movement despite being met with skepticism or when told they did not exist. When powerful national newspapers, like the New York Times, claim that the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision was based on “religious doctrine”, and that religious people imposed their belief system on the whole country, they ignore the voices and opinions of many Americans who have no “belief system” other than science .

The secular news channel National Public Radio also concluded that “when life begins is essentially a religious question” – eliminating debate or discussion of abortion on other grounds. The classification of abortion as a religious issue was even evident during the pleadings of Dobbsthe Mississippi case that overturned Roe vs. Wade and Family planning c. Casey. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed Solicitor General Scott Stuart: “The question of the beginning of life has been hotly debated by philosophers since the dawn of time. It is still debated in religions. So when you say it’s the only right that takes away the state’s ability to protect a life, that’s a religious view, isn’t it? He assumes a fetus is alive at… when?

Yet religious leaders, including Pope Francis, who studied chemistry after graduating from high school, disagree. “For me, the distortion of the understanding of abortion arose mainly from seeing it as a religious issue,” he wrote in a 2019 letter to an Argentinian priest. “The question of abortion is not essentially religious. It is a human problem before any religious option. The issue of abortion must be approached scientifically,” he noted (even emphasizing the word “scientifically”).

With the pope, the “nones” do not believe that the question of when human life begins is a religious question. Groups like Secular Pro-life (run by an atheist), Rehumanize International (also an atheist), the Equal Rights Institute, and the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAUU) follow the science: the long-established, clear medical fact that human life begins at the moment of conception.

The medical textbook “Human Embryology & Teratology” agrees: “Fertilization is an important milestone, because under ordinary circumstances a new, genetically distinct human organism is thus formed,” the textbook notes. And a recent survey of thousands of biologists around the world found that 96% also claimed that human life begins at fertilization.

“You absolutely don’t need to believe in a God to oppose the intentional taking of human life,” insists Herb Geraghty, executive director of Rehumanize. “Many atheists, like me, who embrace a consistent ethic of life, oppose abortion for the same reasons we oppose things like the death penalty, war, and police brutality. Abortion is a violation of human rights, and everyone should work to end it.

Non-religious anti-abortion organizations embrace this scientific consensus, adding a human rights component and a desire to defend the most vulnerable human lives “on the margins”. These secular groups may have many different perspectives on other burning social issues than their mainstream Christian colleagues, but all agree with the basic pro-life premise that every human life is worth protecting, at all times. stages of development.

“As an atheist, I believe the life we ​​have now is the only one we have,” said Monica Snyder, executive director of Secular Pro-Life. “I am against abortion because it destroys humans. It is not a religious belief; it is a fact of biology. As organisms, we start out as zygotes. You, me and everyone we know was once an embryo, once a fetus. It is those who advocate elective abortion who want to do this debate about religion, because biology does not support the pro-choice position at all.

Even after 50 years of “established law”, Roe vs. Wade never really settled in the hearts and minds of the American people. It may be easier to dismiss pro-life advocacy as part of the pages of scripture or the stuff of Sunday sermons than to address scientific or human rights issues, but the presence growing number of unbelievers who have worked (but not prayed) to see deer overthrown testifies to one of the fundamental principles of the foundation of our country: that each human being has natural rights, present by virtue of his very humanity.

Mary FioRito is a lawyer and member of the Center for Ethics and Public Policy and the Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame.