Quote (Black XistenZ @ Mar 5 2023 02:18pm)
An embryo or first-trimester fetus is neither an independent life nor does it have an individual personality. An abortion 8 weeks into a pregnancy is not the same, from a practical and moral perspective, as an 8th month abortion. The development of human life is not a discrete event, it happens on a continuous scale and we have to draw a line somewhere.
Radicals from both ends of the spectrum are lazy by taking an absolutist stance that allows them to avoid a difficult and painful, but important debate by going either "any fertilized egg is in the same moral category as a newborn baby" or "the mother has the right to terminate her pregnancy at any point up until literal birth for any reason". (For the record: in practice, the overwhelming majority of late-term abortions happen due to very severe and tragic medical reasons, not because a women carried her pregnancy for months before changing her mind on a whim. Still: in recent years, pro-lifers are increasingly arguing that a woman would have the moral right to carry out late term abortions whenever she feels like it, no medical reasons needed.)
In terms of removing the fetus from her body, the mother has a right to do that at any time for any reason. You have the absolute sayv over your body and the reasons to violate that are extremely few and far between.
I have no qualms about regulating the specific manner that it happens once the fetus reaches viability though. Like an 8 month birth is probably less risky than an 8 month abortion, but she will always retain the right to decide to remove another person from her body.