I think that the question of abortion is truly a dilemma. The foundation of the pro-choice argument is that a fetus is part of a woman's body, and therefore her own to control. The foundation of the anti-abortion argument is that a fetus is a person in his/her own right, and therefore has a right to life.The dilemma comes with the paradox that is pregnancy: the fetus is BOTH part of the woman's body, and a body of its own. Therefore a woman has the legitimate right to decide what to do with her womb and its contents, AND a fetus has the legitimate right to be live and to be legally protected from violence.
So how do we deal with this dilemma, where two equally legitimate rights are in conflict? I think the best way is to examine how the two parties got into this dilemma in the first place. A fetus' role in an unwanted pregnancy is always involuntary; he or she did not choose to be conceived. On the other hand, a woman GENERALLY (I will address exceptions below) enters this dilemma voluntarily, by choosing to have sex knowing that it might result in pregnancy and what pregnancy would involve.
So it seems to me that although an unwanted pregnancy presents a conflict between equally legitimate rights, since the woman entered this conflict voluntarily and the fetus involuntarily, the fetus' rights should have priority in most cases. So I am pro-life in ordinary situations.
When I said that a woman enters an unwanted pregnancy "voluntarily", I mean that she chooses to have sex, knowing that it might result in pregnancy and what pregnancy is likely to involve. Of course there are a number of scenarios where this would not apply. If she were pregnant as a result of rape or incest, then the "choosing to have sex" part wouldn't apply. If she were a very young girl or had a mental disability or illness, then the "knowing it might result in pregnancy" part wouldn't apply. And if continuing the pregnancy had extraordinary health risks, then the "knowing what pregnancy is likely to involve" part wouldn't apply. So in these exceptional situations, I think that the woman's right to control her own body should take precedence.
So that's how I've managed to come up with an answer that works with me logically and ethically. A general question to those who are far more pro-choice or more pro-life than me: do you see the question of abortion as a straight forward moral question, or a difficult one? Is it a dilemma where you understand the other side but reluctantly come down on the side you come down on, or do you think the other side of the argument is nonsense? I think this is a really hard dilemma - one of the hardest ethical dilemmas that there is today.
One more comment: I often hear pro-choice people point out that many people are not able to be good parents, but isn't this a straw man argument? Pro-lifers hold that pregnant women should have to carry their fetuses to term, not that they should have to raise the babies. Adoption is always an option, even for older, married women; if their relatives look at them askance that's their relatives' problem.
Marion