We're reproducing the intractibility of the abortion wars here on the list, both sides taking hard positions, no compromise in sight. Given the nature of of the debate as it is cast, that is to be expected. If fetuses are people, then killing them is murder. If they are not, them, however traumatic it may be for the woman, it's not.
A couple of general logical points that bedevil the debate should be cleared away. It's not to the point to talk about whether fetuses are alive. Of course they are. But grass and cows are alive too, and no one thinks its wrong to kill grass, while only ethica vegetarians think it is wrong to kill cow. The question, if you want to frame it that way, is whether fetuses are people, or anyway are the sort things that have a right to life. It's also not to the point to look at pictures of them and see that they look like babies after a certain point. Something might havea right to life and not look the least bit human, and vice versa.
It's interesting that the public attitudes on the question suggest that ordinary folk are not thinking in metaphysical terms like this at all. The polls tend to show support, even among folks who are generally anti-choice/pro-life, for abortion rights in cases where the woman's health is at risk or the fetus is the product of rape or incest. Now, normally we don't think it is OK to kill one person because his continued life might put another person's at risk, or merely because he's the product of rape or incest. So that suggests that what is pushing people around here is not whether fetuses are people, because if they are they are whether or not their existence puts the woman's health or life at risk, and whether or not they are the products of rape or incest. It's something else.
The best stab I know at sorting out what is going on with popular attitudes is with Judith Thompson's famous paper, in which she presents her violinist hypothetical. Do folks here know this paper? It's widely taught in intro ethical problems classes. You awake and find yourself in a hospital hooked intravenously to a famous violinist, who needs to use your bodily fluids for nine months, or he will die. Can you unhook him? T suggests that you can, even though he's clearly a person, because no person has the right to command another's body for that sort of period. T suggests without great elaboration that the answer is intuitively different if you volunteered to be hooked up, or even if you carelessly put yourself in the situation where you might end up hooked up. The analogies to involuntary, voluntray, and negligent pregenany are obvious.
Now if this is right, what that suggests (T does not spell this out) is what is motivating people's attitudes is not whether the fetus is a person or hasa right to life, but whether the sexual activity was involuntary. Essentially the background view is that it's OK to kill a fetus even if it is as much of a person as a violinist, if it is the product of rape or incest (involuntary sex), but the more voluntary or careless the sexual activity is on the part of the woman, the less people are inclined to think that it is acceptable to kill the fetus.
Note also that the conception of a right to life that goes with T's view is strictly negative. By this I mean the view that the violinist/fetus has a right not to be killed, but no right to means to life -- your body -- at least unless you voluntarily or carelessly offer him those means. That is not a view that most leftists are comfortable with. Most of us think that others do have the right to means of life, and we are obliged to provide others with those means in the form of our labor and time. On the other hand, the right wing view that the fetus/violinist has a right to the means of life is harder for most right wingers to accept, since the right normally thinks that others do not have a right to have others provide them with the time and labor necessary to sustain them.
I'm pro-choice myself, and I reject the Thompsonian thesis that the ethics of choice depends on whether the fetus is the product of sexual activity that is voluntary or not. But the position is not _intellectually) easy to maintain, although I agree with Doug, Kelly, JennyB, and Joanna that it is a bright light litmus test for whether you are a feminist.
jks
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