I think the bill requiring a doctor to tell a woman considering abortion that life begins at conception is wrong, for a lot of reasons, the main one being that legislators have no business declaring legal certainty over something about which there is no medical, philosophical or ethical certainty. But one of those reasons is not improper religious interference:
The Rev. Michael D. Mather of Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis told the Senate health committee that not even fellow Methodists agree on when human life begins.
As written, Mather said the legislation represents one religious viewpoint - the belief that human physical life commences when a sperm fertilizes an egg.
"I believe that what is matter of faith should not be a matter of law," he told the panel.
David Sklar, an intern at the Jewish Community Relations Council, read a statement by the Indianapolis group that called the bill's declaration that life begins at conception to be "blatantly indifferent" to diverse religious beliefs, including Jewish tradition.
People of different religious beliefs disagree about a lot of things. Methodists and Catholics, for example, have different ways of looking at homosexuality. Different faiths have differing views on the death penalty. That doesn't mean a bill for or against the death penalty or for or against gay marriage is "religious" legislation. Whether a bill is "blatantly indifferent" to diverse relgious beliefs should be a matter of indifference to us.
