It's always seemed to me that the abortion debate is full of red herrings, and the real question is a lot simpler than most people will admit. When does a human life begin? When does the fetus become a human being with rights? Does a woman have the right to control her own body? Do her rights trump the rights of her unborn child? Etc. It's all BS. A fertilized ovum is the beginning of a human life. There can be no rights without responsibilities, a fetus cannot be responsible for anything. And no, women do not have the right to control their own bodies, because the simple fact is that they can't. If they could, the question of abortion would never arise, there would be no unwanted pregnancies. The real question is, under what circumstances is it permissible to kill another human being? All societies I've ever heard of have always accepted that there are such circumstances. War and self defence are only the most obvious ones. Some societies condone the killing of the old and infirm, for instance, or the young and handicapped, and to be fair it should be observed that those tend to be what we would call "primitive" societies that can't afford to carry unproductive members, but the fact remains, morality is entirely relative to culture. So is religious belief, but that's another, though related, issue, because religion generally claims to be the arbiter of morality. It's not, really, but that too is another issue.
I also feel compelled to confess that, as a man, I'm not even sure I'm entitled to have an opinion about abortion. I'm never going to be pregnant, it's a situation I'll never face, a decision I'll never have to make. I'll also admit that if I knew I was the father of an unborn child I'd be deeply distressed by the woman's decision to abort it, but that may be only because I'm now in circumstances that would allow me to support and care for a child. How would I feel if I were 17 and uneducated and unemployed? I've no idea, and never will have, because that didn't happen to me.
