I support unrestricted access to abortion throughout pregnancy. ...
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I support unrestricted access to abortion throughout pregnancy. However, the pro-choice side will be more persuasive if we assume that pro-lifers are kind, rational people on the whole but with flawed models of the world. So, if I were to steelman the pro-life side: * Children have the same moral weight as any other human. * Mothers are not allowed to kill their children after birth, even when they have severe disabilities. * A fetus just prior to birth is no ethically different than a infant just after birth. * If the mother is not ethically allowed to kill the infant just after birth, the mother is not ethically allowed to kill the fetus just before birth. * If the mother is not ethically allowed to kill the fetus at time Tbirth - 5 minutes, she's not ethically allowed to kill the fetus at Tbirth - 10 minutes, or Tbirth - 1 day, or Tbirth - n days. * The mother's life is not in danger (any more than any other pregnancy). * Therefore, there is no ethically justified reason to allow the mother to kill the fetus. For example, imagine that the woman was connected to a dependent sentient conjoined twin, and that she wanted to sever the link immediately (resulting in her twin's death). The pro-life side would argue that both the dominant twin and the dependent twin deserve equal weighting, and that it is wrong to allow the dominant twin to unilaterally kill her twin. (Even if doing so would substantially increase the dominant twin's quality and length of life.) In their minds, this case is even less justified, since a) the mother voluntarily created the link between her and her fetus b) mother need only wait another 16 weeks, and the link would be naturally severed. Pro-choice people don't accept this logic for a variety of reasons. They typically believe one or more of the following: *...there is a Tbirth - n days where the fetus does not have equal moral worth to a newborn, and has no more moral weight than a benign tumor. * ...even if the fetus has the same moral worth as a newborn, the mother's control over her body should be absolute. She has the right to eject the fetus at any time, even if it results in the death of the fetus. * ...reducing the risk of pregnancy to the mother outweighs the life of the fetus. * ...post-pregnancy costs (financial, emotional) outweigh the life of the fetus. I think we'll get further by making good cases for the above claims, than we will by painting the pro-life side as morally corrupt religious fanatics.