Hemant Mehta is the founder and editor of FriendlyAtheist.com, a YouTube creator, and podcast co-host. He is a former National Board Certified math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He has appeared on CNN and FOX News and served on the board of directors for Foundation Beyond Belief and the Secular Student Alliance. He has written multiple books, including I Sold My Soul on eBay and The Young Atheist's Survival Guide. He also edited the book Queer Disbelief.
Catholic hospitals have a bad reputation among people who understand how they work — and they deserve it. They don’t perform abortions (even to save the life of the mother, as we saw in the case of Savita Halappanavar), they’re awful about dealing with ectopic pregnancies (PDF), they don’t perform tubal ligations or vasectomies… it makes you wonder why they want to be in the health care field in the first place. But the overriding idea behind those things I just mentioned is that every sperm is sacred and a fertilized egg is treated just like an actual child. However, a lawsuit against a Catholic hospital has pushed the hospital to go against its own beliefs and say that fetuses aren’t children. Read more
Last June, I gave a talk at the FreeOK Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma about The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide (before the book had a title). It’s an expanded version of some of my similar talks online and Seth Andrews and his team did a great job of putting the video together. Hope you like it! Read more
We already know the government gave $542,400,000 in funding to Planned Parenthood last year. That money paid for cancer screenings, STD/STI tests, contraception… and not abortions (since those are not funded by the government). Liberty Counsel founder and Religious Right spokesbigot Mat Staver not only ignores that reality entirely, he’s making the claim that Obama (and Congress and liberals and everyone else, pretty much) is just like… well… take a look (beginning at the 7:00 mark): You can also read it for yourself: Read more