[WS:] That is not how I would argue it. I would say that unlike fully formed specimens of any life form, the fetus does not fully "own" its life, but rather that "ownership" is shared with the mother, the latter being the "controlling partner." Therefore, the latter's consent is the condition sine qua none to maintain the fetus's life. Since the mother owns her own life and thus can terminate it when she so chooses, it follows that she can terminate the life of the fetus, which she also owns as the "controlling partner." Or to put it differently, if she decides to end her own life, the life of the fetus will be necessarily terminated as well, whether the prosecutors and morality police want it or not. So her decision to end the fetus's life is not fundamentally different than her decision to end her own life, to which she has full de facto if not de jure right.
Marv: "But I have less tolerance for those, especially men, who equate abortion with homicide and the death penalty - which you have come perilously close to doing - and on that basis would deny women the right to choose and imprison "baby killers" instead."
[WS:] No disagreement here. But not everyone on the anti-abortion side falls into this category. There are also those who are genuinely concerned and want to help rather than punish. I suggest you read "Morality Politics" by Gerge Lakoff, which offers a really good insight into how conservatives (or perhaps many of them) think. While I personally find their mind frame totally alien, I also agree to disagree with their pov.
Marv: "Like many others, I see no conflict whatsoever in supporting the pro-choice and dying with dignity movements and opposing capital punishment, a barbarous relic."
[WS:] Neither do I, albeit for different reasons. Dignity,
justification or lack thereof are social constructs created to
mitigate the fundamental contradiction of life - that maintaining life
necessarily involves taking life. There is no way out of this, or at
least no way out being alive. We can socially mitigate that
contradiction in many different ways that does or does not involve
capital punishment or other forms of taking life and even believe that
we "resolved" it, but the fundamental fact is that it is there, it is
just that we can create social-cognitive filters to avoid seeing it.
>From that pov, executing a criminal or two is something of a
relatively low significance. A social agreement that is alien to me -
yes, but I would hesitate to call a barbarous relic. There are far
worse deeds that deserve that label.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."