What you 'knew', or rather 'believed', to be 'true' as an atheist, is now 'confirmed' via Christianity which is the larger context for your belief. You see? You are treating your beliefs as something you 'know' to be the case. So yes, you did adopt a new position, one which not only galvanizes your secular view, but completely encompasses it. Except that Exodus says that abortion is not murder, and Roe vs. Wade says that abortion is not the issue; that the violation of women's constitutional rights is the issue.
You 'believed the killing of the unborn was killing a living person', but as has been pointed out to you from several sources, an unborn fetus is not yet a 'person', for several reasons already explained. You have yet to provide a legal definition of 'person' that is acceptable to you, since you rejected the one I provided from Black's Law, and yet want to push ahead with the idea that abortion is the murder of a 'person'.
Most of Western law and culture is based upon Judeao-Christian doctrine, and that would include your atheist views, so your argument that your atheist view preceded your Christian view is bunk.
*****
The following is excerpted from Roe vs. Wade:
A. The appellee and certain
amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses,
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for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. [
Footnote 51] On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument [
Footnote 52] that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to "person." .... But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only post-natally. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application. [
Footnote 54]
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All this, together with our observation,
supra, that, throughout the major portion of the 19th century, prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn. [
Footnote 55] This is in accord with the results reached in those few cases where the issue has been squarely presented.
...
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...Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
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It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live' birth. This was the belief of the Stoics. [
Footnote 56] It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith. [
Footnote 57] It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family. [
Footnote 58] As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physician and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. [
Footnote 59] Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks. [
Footnote 60] The Aristotelian theory of "mediate animation," that held sway throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, continued to be official Roman Catholic dogma until the 19th century, despite opposition to this "ensoulment" theory from those in the Church who would recognize the existence of life from
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the moment of conception. [
Footnote 61] The latter is now, of course, the official belief of the Catholic Church. As one brief
amicus discloses, this is a view strongly held by many non-Catholics as well, and by many physicians. Substantial problems for precise definition of this view are posed, however, by new embryological data that purport to indicate that conception is a "process" over time, rather than an event, and by new medical techniques such as menstrual extraction, the "morning-after" pill, implantation of embryos, artificial insemination, and even artificial wombs. [
Footnote 62]
In areas other than criminal abortion, the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before live birth, or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth. For example, the traditional rule of tort law denied recovery for prenatal injuries even though the child was born alive. [
Footnote 63] That rule has been changed in almost every jurisdiction. In most States, recovery is said to be permitted only if the fetus was viable, or at least quick, when the injuries were sustained, though few
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courts have squarely so held. [
Footnote 64] In a recent development, generally opposed by the commentators, some States permit the parents of a stillborn child to maintain an action for wrongful death because of prenatal injuries. [
Footnote 65] Such an action, however, would appear to be one to vindicate the parents' interest and is thus consistent with the view that the fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life. Similarly, unborn children have been recognized as acquiring rights or interests by way of inheritance or other devolution of property, and have been represented by guardians
ad litem. [
Footnote 66] Perfection of the interests involved, again, has generally been contingent upon live birth.
In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
