[hmkpoker]

Here's my take.

Assuming there's no God or Heaven or Hell, and abortion (heck, even murder) is not a sin. An unwanted pregnancy is likely to bring more unhappiness than happiness. Therefore, there should be no societal problem killing the fetus.

However, we run into a problem when we find ourselves able to use the same logic on babies. Children 0-5 (and possibly older) are completely dependant, expensive, and produce nothing for society other than "potential," and likely grow into another average joe. We should be able to terminate their existence at our inconvenience.

However, there is a problem here that doesn't exist with the unborn. Allowing post-natal abortions up to a certain age (let's say, three) is likely to cause a poorer quality of parenting and upbringing. The societal reactions toward a child with no rights could be detrimental to its upbringing, and lead to problems in the person's development. These problems then become our problems. The fetus, far less affected by societal influence, will suffer much fewer problems in its development.

One could argue that trivialising the life of the unborn could also lead to bad parenting/influence, and to some extent I'd agree. To confirm same would require a study that I am not sure how to implement. Regardless, I still think having abortion as an option does more harm than good.