We shouldn’t base our laws on the Bible

I HAVE been reading the literature of Both Lives Matter. I find they base their objection to abortion on unprovable beliefs drawn from a particular literalist reading of the Bible, which leads them to assert that a single-cell zygote is already a sinful human being equal in rights to an adult. This claim is based on David’s Psalm, in which God knew him even before he was conceived and saw his sinfulness from the time his mother conceived him. From this, they deduce that he must have been present in the zygote, so the zygote must be a person.

Surely, this false logic is not a strong enough foundation to deny other people’s rights to determine their own fertility and to maintain abortion as a matter of criminal law, rather than medical practice? While the Psalm was meant as poetry when it was written 3,000 years ago and express es David’ s praise of God’s omniscience, it is philosophical nonsense when taken literally( as Both Lives Matter take it).

Would we allow a sect, such as the Christian Scientists, to lobby for laws to make blood transfusions illegal to comply with their deeply held beliefs? If not, nor should we pay attention to Both Lives Matter’s socalled “arguments” based on dubious theology, not fact.

Thankfully, the Westminster legislation has forced us away from a misreading of the logic of 3,000 years ago to something more current, based on scientific fact and properly thought-out human rights’ considerations. We should not be complacent: the DUP and these other fundamentalist lobby groups are determined to take us back there as soon as they can.

The price of the new liberties will be eternal vigilance. NAME AND ADDRESS WITH EDITOR