You cannot elevate the rights of the fetus beyond those of the mother, and if abortion is removed from the equation (made utterly illegal somehow) in essence that's what's done. Since the subject of slavery was brought up, to my mind forcing a woman to go through a pregnancy that is not wanted, or in some way would be a burden, or even a risk, is a form of enslavement. What else do you call it to be forced to undertake a task that will take up 9 months of your life, 24/7, can potentially be lethal (ALL pregnancies have inherent risk), and will leave you physically and mentally changed forever (you can NEVER get your body back, it will be always be different, it will always have been a body that has given birth and even pathologist who look at your bones 3,000 years from now will be able to tell you once gave birth)? You can't FORCE the father to participate or provide assistance in any shape form or fashion (you can make all the laws you want to, but if daddy-o decides to quit working for a while or take a job where he's getting paid under the table, how do you enforce it?). And what about the women who CAN'T physically, for whatever reason, keep working through a pregnancy (not so rare, I was one of them. Fainting on the job was frowned on). How many lifestyles/educations/careers can afford an eight month hiatus?
If abortion becomes illegal then the women can't be the only ones to BEAR the burden, so to speak, because I think, proportionately, men push the issue. Like my mother used to say, "A stiff prick has no conscience." Plenty of women have crossed their legs and watched a man walk out the door (and I know I'm going to get called a feminist or something else, I'm not saying women don't enjoy sex and push for sex, but it's pretty hard for a women to have sex with a man who doesn't want to ... and the other thing, how many woman HATE condoms? Usually, for the woman, it's better in the long run).
And speaking from the perspective of a child who was born under less than ideal circumstances -- I really think it's better to have your life ended before consciousness ever takes place than to be brought into the world and NOT be wanted and made to feel guilty for the fact of your existence.
Adoption could be the perfect solution on so many levels, but it brings it's own issues. There are a lot of children who are adopted out that hunt down their birth parents later in life and dump loads of guilt on them, e.g., "why didn't you love me?" "why didn't you keep me?" The fact that the birth parent was young, the pregnancy was an accident (or god forbid, result of rape), or that the baby wasn't wanted or it was just darned inconvenient, that doesn't wash does it? And there's just no P.C. way you can say those things, but that's life. Birth control fails, people get raped, young and/or horny people make stupid mistakes. If a teenager engages in sex without protection, gets pregnant, chooses to carry that baby to term, gives the baby up out of free will and wishes the child well and closes that chapter of her life is it fair to have the past dredged up and old wounds reopened? And is it fair to the adopted baby, what if they find their birth parents and realize that ... well, their birth parents aren't perfect people? Who's fault is that and who bears the burden there?
Ethically, one abortion, five abortions, 5,000 abortions, I really see no difference. If you consider abortion murder, then murder is murder, it's not graded on a bell curve. Is John Wayne Gacy going to burn in a hotter hell than a gynecologist who regularly performs abortions or is the gynecologist who performs abortions going to burn in a hotter hell than the woman who got drunk after work and drove home and missed the stop sign and, at 65 mph, t-boned the 24 year old husband and father coming home from working swings? Is there a separate hell for the Nazis, and for the Taliban suicide bombers, for drunk drivers and the Marines who have killed Iraq soldiers? What about the doctors who stopped feeding and hydrating that Florida woman who was in a vegetative state? BB is talking about the ethics of ending life, right?
In nature the existing life forms ARE more valuable than the unborn. The known factor counts more. Animals spontaneously abort if their life circumstances are too stressful for a pregnancy, and more interestingly there are several species that will resorb their pregnancy in stress situations, and seemingly on the whim of the mother (ferrets and rabbits come to mind immediately).
If you don't consider abortion murder then neither the person who has one abortion because of unfortunate circumstances nor the gynecologist who regularly performs abortions come into the equation. The only ethical consideration is the person who has five abortions, and then not as an ethical issue, per se, but the question of why would someone choose to do something so stupid as to use an invasive procedure with all of its attendant risks as a form of birth control?
Abortion treads dangerously close to religious beliefs. There is a concept in religion of "ensouled." What if YOUR religion embraces the concept that a person is not ensouled until the baby takes an independent breath? Then abortion IS nothing more than killing an internal parasite, because the soul is immortal and will be born to life when it's meant to be born, and no hand of man will stop that from happening.
In a perfect world none of these questions would be an issue, but so much of this is PERSONAL ethics, I just don't feel it's fair to judge women for the decisions they make, or to impose limits on women's reproductive choices.
Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below 
