Abortion should be legalized.

I should have clarified on my terminology. I believe that a pro-lifer is defined as one who wishes that abortion should not be legal at any point in a pregnancy. That is a relatively straight-forward viewpoint, compared to pro-choice, which I hold to encompass people who hold that abortion should be legal for at least some alloted time of a pregnancy. So the term "pro-choicer" is an ambiguous one when referenced to generally. Personally, I believe that abortion should be legal for the first and second trimesters, but not the third, so I will defend that viewpoint from here on out. Which means when coming to the case of your daughter, I would not like to have permit abortion, as at that point your daughter would be extensively neurologically developed. Most neurologists hold one of the most defining points of the beginning of life to be between 24 and 27 weeks in a pregnancy, when the child starts emitting a recognizable EEG pattern. I think that clarifies your first set of questions. Except for: "Must I oppose a first-trimester abortion of a rape or incest victim in order to be "pro-life"?" On the contrary, I think anyone who genuinely is against abortion, who believes that from the moment of conception that abortion is murder, then it is hypocritical to support abortions for rape or incest victims. If the pro-lifer truly believes that their philosophy on abortion is about life, and not responsibility, punishment, or retribution, then there is no difference. The circumstances surrounding conception would have no bearing on the life of the fetus. "Would this then also justify any other crime? What if the legalization of murdering one person a year was demonstrated to reduce the total number of violent crimes -- could it be justified?" I suppose this is where I have to establish my reasoning behind why I don't believe ending the life of a fetus is analogous to that of cold-blooded murder. You could argue that this wouldn't negate my previous argument, using utilitarian ethics to appeal to pro-lifers, but I believe there's an obvious distinction between an abortion and a definitive murder - the women do not believe they are committing an act as heinous as murder. So whereas a murderer undeniably knows he or she is committing murder, the woman could not consider the fetus as a life and be innocent in that regard. At this point, we have to establish what the state should consider life, and if the state should consider abortion murder. I mentioned earlier that I believe in abortions in the first and second trimester, and not the third. Therefore, I agree with the ban on partial-birth and late-term abortions, and I generally believe that current abortion laws in the United States should be upheld. My basis for believing this is primarily neurology and capability. In what ways does a human being differ from other animals? Why is it, by most, considered exceptionally more unethical to kill a living human being as opposed to a living, say, cow? I would assume this bias exists on two levels. Firstly, a human being is of our own species. Every species that wants to rationally continue existing has a genetic predisposition towards saving their own kind, so as not to risk extinction and to properly propagate the genes of their species. While most, even all, humans may have an inherent feeling of this bias, I don't think it fully accounts for the human race's love of itself. I think the matter mostly has to do with distinct sentience. Very little other creatures have traces of the level of sentience that humans do, and those who come close are the epitome of the phrase "so close, yet so far." Raise a cow up to the level of intelligence and development of humans. Disregarding matters of hostility that may arise, if cows had intelligence and civilizations of the stature of humans, along with language and means of communication with each other and ourselves, I'd be willing to bet murdering that creature would merit a punishment analogous to the charge of murder of a human. Of course, no such creature exists, but you can see my point that our compassion is with those of sentience, and hardly anything otherwise, save for small clusters of animal rights activists who are dwarfed by the rest of the apathetic human race. So, compassion and legalities are deduced to apply to the sentient. They do not apply to creatures such as cows, which are not as intelligent or developed as humans. So, then, should the rights of the fetus not lie within its stage of development, making it a more punishable offense the later stage in its life you abort it? Here is where you may object, to say that the fetus, as a life that will develop into a human, has potential for sentience and humanity, and the application of laws to it. This is all so, but any actions taken against the fetus prior to that point, by any standards, do not make those actions immoral or unethical. I find embryology studies compelling, as they show that development of embryos in all species are relatively the same, and all have traces of past evolution in them. http://upload.wikimedia.org... There is an interesting diagram for you - the relative developments of animal fetuses. Note the exceptional prenatal similarities. It begs the question: where does the difference lay? And we have answered that question: in sentience, and in development. So it does become more unethical to abort the further on in the stage the child is, which is why procedures such as partial birth and late term abortions have been banned. What about prior to those, though? I see no ethical dilemma in abortion, as the development of the fetus is insufficient, and the function of the body systems is greatly impaired. The cerebrum, the part of the brain that makes the most difference in distinction from animals, and in life functioning, is the last part of a fetus to develop. I am willing to trade the existence of a developing creature, indistinguishable for many stages in development in regards to what animal it is, for one capable of fully functioning, feeling pain, thinking, building, and progressing. I put more of a priority on people who already definitely exist and are sentient, such as women who are pregnant and wish an abortion. You can see the great degree of immorality I see in letting women severely injure and kill themselves, usually in a painful fashion, for aborting beings that are, on a philosophical level, debatable of being lives. Allowing the painful disfiguration and often death of a woman as amends to the abortion of a creature which hardly feels any pain, not for any other reason than it hardly is able to feel any pain as a corollary of its underdeveloped nervous system and body structure, is an tyrannical ruling analogous to taking 2 eyes for a badly functioning eye. Such a ruling is only suitable for tyrannies and only acceptable by those who decree themselves punishers.