It's fascinating how quickly Islam can get out of the abortion debate, for all the other difficulties conservative societies like to impose through that religion:
life begins after the first trimester in the Islamic point of view, at least in certain schools of thought. However, I wonder just how "universal" the opinion regarding preservation of the mother's life is in conservative Islamic societies. Have they really managed a better track record than Christian societies in that regard, or is it about the same?
I wonder if there are other religious rationales that could support abortion rights. For example, is/was there any sect that views pregnancy as a devolution of creative power from a divine source onto women? If so, that might suggest that just as God has a say in whether an adult human lives or dies, then a woman has a say in whether her child lives or dies. Inasmuch as religion served partly as a behavioral adaptation that promotes reproduction and survival of the human species, this is probably rare, but I'm still curious how many religions are out there that might go against the grain and dig into the supernatural to rationalize certain reproductive choices.
As far as a secular rationale in favor of abortion rights, I would make the following observation:
Biophilosophically speaking, the child is an extension of the mother's body whilst in the womb. If she is said to exercise control over her own body, then she must be able to exercise control over the fetus that is just as much a physical part of her as her right arm. Despite
Roe v. Wade's foundation on the legal question of privacy as a philosophical underpinning, it seems to me the biological question must take precedence; I can't think of any more convincing rationale to explain why a fetus should lack a right to life whereas the freshly born child immediately gains some legal status at the moment of separation from the mother.
However, what complicates the question of abortion from a biophilosophical standpoint is that the fetus' consciousness and perception are separate from the mother's, even though the fetus is physically supplied by the mother's body. For this reason, I find late-term abortions questionable on grounds of pain that the fetus may experience during the process. Certainly, if we are worried about animals experiencing pain, we should concern ourselves with pain experienced by human beings in all stages of their life cycle. Lord J had previously cornered me philosophically with the observation that the birth process subjects the fetus-becoming-child to huge physical pains, probably far more than the pain of abortion if anesthesia is administered properly.
There is also the issue of fetal viability. If we were to eschew the biophilosophical reasoning I offer above in favor of the fetus' mere ability to sustain itself outside of the mother's body (albeit with medical intervention) then yesterday's fetus is today's child due solely to advancements in life support, and legal rights may be partially dependent on technology.
All this is why I advocate the creation of children via "birth pods," otherwise known as
artificial wombs. The Pro-Life movement might actually gain some philisophical ground by supporting such a scientific advancement; it eliminates the biological argument in favor of abortion rights mentioned above, though the privacy concerns of
Roe v. Wade would still apply I suppose -- however, the privacy concerns would presumably apply to both parents equally in the case of birth pods, creating even more interesting legal dynamics.