Hence your inability or unwillingness to squarely answer any of my arguments in the post to which you replied. Perhaps you are not interested in expanding the right and access to abortion, nor are you concerned about the decline of abortion providers. Otherwise, you might at least pay some attention to the effect of your argument upon such problems of importance.
>It's just another dodge, and a pretty cowardly one at that.
<snip>
>I repeat, I favor abortion rights; what I do
>>not favor is moral dishonesty in the defense of any political position--
You think that everyone who supports and wants to expand the right and access to abortion at the bottom of their heart thinks abortion is a moral problem and the same as murder *but* is denying it in the interest of political expediency. That is plainly untrue. Only committed moralists think that an elimination of a fertilized egg is murder. (Remember you said "how can the developmental portion of life that occurs inside the womb be any less 'life' than the developmental portion of life that occurs outside?") Perhaps you deserve that Monty Python skit -- "Every sperm is sacred...," since your morality is basically the same as the Pope's in this regard. (Even most Catholics defy the Pope's nonsense in practice!)
BTW, I am not saying the personhood argument is perfectly satisfactory; I am simply pointing out that those who advance it think it's moral, coherent, & necessary, and they are right to think that it is at least less ridiculous than your "life is continuity, so aboriton of of a fetus at any stage, including of a fertilized egg, is murder" argument.
>It's all well and good to say that abortion is principally a women's health
>issue--*if* you are content to restrict abortion rights to those cases in
>which a woman's health is demonstrably compromised by the prospect
>of carrying a pregnancy to term.
I said "women's lives and health." There is more to women's lives than simple and plain physical health. We would like to be free from avoidable biological contingencies (such as unwanted pregnancy), so we may enjoy our lives freely without gender-specific burdens.
Yoshie