I feel conflicted about things which affect others and could be the result of society. Abortion does affect an embryo, fetus or child, depending on the stage, yet on the other hand there's the rights of the woman. I think it should be permitted in the early stages of pregnancy, yet forbidden at the latter stages, when if it were born, it would be an otherwise healthy child. I think there should be more consideration to alternatives such as adoption and more maternal support as well as contraception. There are exceptions for this, such as when he baby will die anyway, when it's born and it should be removed to protect the woman's life.
There are other cases where we risk the life of one to save another.
Is it right to take a blood transfusion from one person, if it means saving another?
Is it right to take an organ transplant from one person, if it means saving another?
Is it right to use the uterus in one person, if it means saving another?
All are cases strictly trading bodily autonomy of one, for survival of another.
Note that the first is almost never fatal to the donor, and the second can have either a small quality-of-life cost (e.g. one kidney, liver section), or is performed after the donor ceases to exist (any other organ donation).
In 2/3 cases, we rule unanimously in favor of the donor: it must be voluntary, and well informed.
And yet we* rule differently in the last case. Why? A fetus is important, sure, but it's no thriving 8-year-old child. Or 25-year-old adult earning income. Or any other stage of life we might value, for whatever reasons, emotional or economic.
*Again, in the sense of those that do, and where they do.
Yet there is a group which professes an outsized, indeed fetishized I would say, fervor for the unborn. Why? Well, you can't understand it on a rational basis, that's for sure. And they sure as hell aren't going to be kicked out of that mindset with a rational argument. It's a peer belief: a shibboleth. It doesn't need any particular meaning, just that it remains something polarizing to maintain the group dynamic.
And taking something manifestly irrational and making a shibboleth out of it, ensures no one leaves by rational argument -- they already rejected reason on it, when they accepted the group. Easy.
Indeed, it is by design.
No one in that group thought particularly much of the idea before it was introduced, yet treat it as so obvious as to need no explanation now. American Catholics and evangelicals are a prime example: largely being the same population before and after the anti-abortion movement occurred, and not being particularly against it beforehand.
The question remains, whose design is it?
Indeed, there are direct historical sources which answer this question (for this particular group), but I'll leave it hanging for now.
Tim