“Atheist pro-lifer”? Not an oxymoron

Rather, it is a thing, as Catholic World Report explains: Kelsey Hazzard is a 24-year-old, pro-life University of Miami alumna and recent graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. She was raised in the United Methodist Church, but as an adult began having doubts about God. “I took a break from religion for […]

Rather, it is a thing, as Catholic World Report explains:

Kelsey Hazzard is a 24-year-old, pro-life University of Miami alumna and recent graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. She was raised in the United Methodist Church, but as an adult began having doubts about God.

“I took a break from religion for a while, and soon realized that it had no impact whatsoever on my morals,” she said. She now describes herself as an “apatheist,” meaning she does not care whether God exists or not, although she says she finds God’s existence “highly unlikely.”

“I was pro-life the instant I learned what abortion was,” said Hazzard, who is a legal fellow at Americans United for Life. “But my position became much stronger in college, when I took a course on prenatal development.”

In 2009, Hazzard founded Secular ProLife (SPL), a group whose vision is “a world in which abortion is unthinkable, for people of every faith and no faith.” Hazzard, SPL’s president, created the group in part to attract non-religious people to the pro-life movement.

“The first time I attended a March for Life, I was struck by all the religious imagery,” she explained. “I thought ‘Wow, if this were an atheist’s first impression of the pro-life movement, she would never come back!’ And from there, it was a case of ‘build it and they will come.’”

The story also cites Nat Hentoff, who is a longtime atheist abortion foe, and one of the unlikeliest you could image.

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