Atheist WaPo columnist bemoans idea babies have souls, says she'd 'feel nothing' if mother aborted her

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Media top headlines December 16

In media news today, a Huffington Post reporter says Manchin called him 'bulls---' CNBC's Jim Cramer gets slammed for claiming government 'has a right' to force people to obey it, and longtime ex-CNN producer John Griffin had marital trouble prior to his arrest.

Liberal Washington Post columnist and self-declared atheist Kate Cohen sought to refute faith-based arguments against abortion Wednesday as she bemoaned the "fantastical" and "scary" idea that people have souls, and that those belonging to aborted babies never got the chance to live their lives on Earth.

In a piece headlined, "‘How would you feel if your mother had aborted you?’ Easy. I’d feel nothing," Cohen argued that aborted babies "feel nothing" because they wouldn't have ever existed following the abortion, and that if it came down to a choice between her "potential existence" and her mother's "freedom," she would choose the latter every time.

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"When Elizabeth Spiers, an adoptee, wrote a thoughtful essay about the limits of adoption as a simple replacement for abortion (as suggested by Justice Amy Coney Barrett), she received a cascade of responses along the lines of: 'If your mother felt she had a choice and chose differently you’d be fine with it?'" Cohen wrote while also referencing Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an ongoing Supreme Court case challenging Mississippi's recently enacted law restricting abortions.

"I’ve got the answer! She wouldn’t be anything — fine or not fine — because she wouldn’t be," Cohen added. 

A anti-abortion demonstrator protests in front of the Supreme Court building, on the day of hearing arguments in the Mississippi abortion rights case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, in Washington, U.S., December 1, 2021. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

Cohen claimed that "not being" was a difficult concept for people to grasp or accept, and that "despite evidence to the contrary," people in ancient times came up with "stories" explaining we existed before we were alive on Earth and that we'll still exist once we pass away.

She cited a number of Bible verses that mentioned how God forms and creates people, as well as Rep. Madison Cawthorn's, R-N.C., recent comments while speaking out against abortion, in which he described souls as being "eternal" and "sanctified by God."

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"To those of us who don’t believe in God, this sounds fantastical. And a little scary coming from the House floor," Cohen wrote. 

"Human lives, when seen this way, inhabit a strange kind of solidity even in the abstract: Before they live — even if they never live — these people were meant to be. And, if they do become (actual) people, their existence is retroactively deemed inevitable and necessary, 'God’s will' and not just one of a zillion possible combinations of sperm and egg and time and chance," she added. 

UNITED STATES - MAY 14: Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., is seen in the Capitol Visitor Center before Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., won the election for House Republican Conference chair on Friday, May 14, 2021. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Cohen also mentioned Rep. Kat Cammack's, R-Fla., testimony in a House hearing on abortion laws about how her mother decided not to have an abortion, despite the pregnancy being a threat to her own life. She seemingly mocked Cammack's comments that unborn little girls "never had a shot" or "a choice."

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"She doesn’t mean 13-year-olds pregnant through ignorance or rape who lived in a state with abortion laws so restrictive they couldn’t end their pregnancies and get on with their lives. She doesn’t mean living, breathing, actual girls who needed help. She means little unborn girls," Cohen wrote.

"Reasonable people can disagree about when a developing fetus has rights that must be considered. And people who are happily pregnant might assign complete personhood to a pea-size clump of cells from the moment the pregnancy is confirmed. But how we feel about that clump is not the same as how it feels," she added. 

Rep. Kat Cammack rips Nancy Pelosi’s House mask mandate during an appearance on Fox News (Screenshot/FNC) (FNC)

Cohen claimed that people like Cammack and Cawthorn, who believe in "the beforelife" and that embryos are "beings" with souls, were proof that "religion" is driving the debate over abortion.

"Religion — not reason and not compassion for people who already exist in this earthly realm," she wrote.

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"Actual people are so desperate not to have children that they will endure shame and threats of violence, jump through bureaucratic hoops and travel long distances to get abortions. Actual people wish to control the course of their lives," she wrote.

"If I had to choose between my potential existence and my actual mother’s freedom? That’s easy. I’d choose my mother’s freedom every time," Cohen added.