Abortion is morally acceptable

"Good response!" So was yours :) Let's list off a few facts before getting into the specifics: Approximately 90% of abortions occur within the first trimester, with 38% of those occurring before and at six weeks' gestation, or four weeks after conception (1). At six weeks gestation, the embryo's heart has only just began pumping blood, and arms and legs are just beginning to develop. It is about the size of the tip of a pen (2). By the end of the third trimester, the offspring, only just having met the qualifications to be described as a fetus, is around 60 millimeters long (about the length of two paperclips) and weighs only 14 grams (3). So when we are talking about a "fetus," you should envision a tiny lump of flesh rather than a baby. Now, in 2010, 85% of all aborted pregnancies were from unmarried women--women who probably weren't financially stable enough to have a child. In fact, the reason given for 75% of all abortions is that having a baby would interfere with work or school and/or they couldn't afford a child. 12% of abortions are from women who have health problems and couldn't handle giving birth to a baby. For less than 1% of abortions was rape given as a reason for the procedure (1). "..One does not need to be able to comprehend their rights to be entitled to them. To illustrate this, let us look at paedophilic sexual intercourse. A young child cannot comprehend sexuality, sexual intercourse or sexual consent, yet that does not mean that the child does not have the right not to be statutory raped." The fact of the matter is, human rights exist to try to prevent human suffering. That's why things like torture, murder, thievery, etc., are banned. If a young child is assaulted, they are very much aware that they do not like what is happening to them. They might not know that there are laws specifically prohibiting pedophilia, but they are aware that their assault is uncomfortable and painful and they don't like it, and they can definitely comprehend, given the information, that they have a right for that to not happen to them. "Moreover, a foetus only lacks interest in life because it does not have the cognitive ability to know what life is, if it had the intelligence to do so, it would undoubtedly choose to hold their right to life. Human rights are granted to humans as default and they can only be removed (if ever) if someone chooses to forfeit them." Normally, I would agree with you that yes, human rights are granted to humans by default. Except I don't think it's right to be able to cherry-pick what rights certain people are able to have. If one reads The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org...) all the way through, it makes it very clear that these rights are only pertinent to viable human beings. A fetus would not need worry about its right to leave its home country, or whether or not it can have a nationality, or its right to education. Now, like I said, around 90% of abortions are performed in the first trimester, so within the first twelve or so weeks of conception. Fetuses haven't even acquired the brain connections necessary to feel pain until twenty-four weeks (4), at which point they can survive outside the womb and abortion is illegal and immoral. Basically what I'm saying is, human rights are null and void until all of them are applicable to a person--so, infancy. "That would only be in the case where a mother's life is in danger, which I am not arguing against anyway. As long as she isn't in danger then she has the liberty to uphold her right to life. She is also not giving up her bodily autonomy because she didn't have the bodily autonomy to harm anyone in the first place. She cannot use her bodily autonomy to hurt anybody when she is not pregnant, so she is not giving up any bodily autonomy when she becomes pregnant and cannot abort....As abortion is harming others (the foetus) one cannot cite bodily autonomy as the justification for killing it." A woman can't justifiably hurt a person unless it's in self defense, that's true. But the difference between a person and a fetus is that the person isn't wholly and completely reliant on the woman and the sustenance she gives them for survival. A fetus only exists because the woman exists, whereas for another person that isn't the case. Because of this, the ability to abort the fetus would technically be the bodily autonomy of the woman until viability. "In the example, the boy is not responsible for the girl being in a needy state and so has no obligation to help her. However, this is not analogous to pregnancy as the pregnant women caused the foetus to be in a needy state by engaging in sexual intercourse (an act intrinsically ordered towards procreation) and so is responsible for helping the foetus; for she is responsible for the foetus's needy state." I acquiesce, the liver transplant analogy was rather faulty. But I just want to point out that consent to sex does not mean consent to pregnancy if contraceptive measures are used. And contraceptive measures aren't exactly foolproof (5). Condoms have an 18% fail rate (meaning out of every 100 sexual encounters a condom is used with, 18 result in pregnancy) and birth control pills have a 9% fail rate. If a woman consents to protected sex and gets pregnant, that could be extremely damaging to her work (less likely to be hired and maternal leave) and/or her school (harsh treatment, bullying, and perceived to be less responsible in the eyes of authorities and peers). The life and career of a person should not be compromised because of such uncertain circumstances. "However, in rape cases the mother's suffering is not removed by abortion; the abortion does not make the woman forget the rape or 'undo' it in any way, and having an abortion is just another act of violence that could further harm her mental health. In fact, 80% of women regretted aborting the child of their rapist(2), which would suggest that abortion does not help the victim of rape and so cannot be justified in cases of it." I have a feeling that those statistics were rather biased, since it was a study done for a book. Besides, only 200 women, and not all of them having even experienced abortion, is a much too small survey to accurately determine the mentality of rape survivors who have an abortion, although your reasoning is solid. And as you said, rape only accounts for a minuscule percent of abortions, so it shouldn't be the deciding factor on its legalization. Sources: (1) http://www.abort73.com... (2) http://www.mayoclinic.org... (3) http://www.mayoclinic.org... (4) http://www.motherjones.com... (5) http://www.cdc.gov...