Do Moral Laws Exist Independently of Us?

Think whether there has been any time in your life, or anything that has come within your experience, that raised the question whether right-and-wrong is something real, independent of the moral attitudes of this or that person, or group of people. That would be an example which illustrates the question 'whether moral truths exist independently of us'.

Let’s look at two examples.

Suppose there is a discussion on abortion. Those people who are against a law allowing abortion in cases where a pregnancy is unwanted are passionately against it, and think that abortion is a great evil. Those people who are in favor of 'a woman's right to choose' believe just as strongly that it is the anti-abortionists who are in the wrong. Is there a right answer to this question, in reality? How would we know? And how can we discover what that 'right answer' is?

Here's another example, which might seem to point in a different direction. Not so very long ago, slavery was thought to be morally acceptable. Nowadays, the vast majority of the people you are likely to meet would say that slavery is morally unacceptable. How did this change of view come about? Is it just an example of different groups of people holding different views? Or is it a case of something that really is wrong, although people at first did not accept that it was wrong, and only later came to see the error of their ways?

As always, I look forward to your comments