Isn't this the crux of the conflict? Whether these "natural rights" are applicable to the "person" in the womb?
If a dead person can't be forced to give up organs without prior consent, a living woman should not be forced to provide life support (at a risk to her own life by the way) for a fetus. Just like I can't be forced to donate a kidney to another person, a woman should not be forced to donate blood, bone and full life support to a fetus.
IOTW, it's literally a matter of competing rights to life. Carrying a pregnancy to term is a mortal risk. Certain pregnancies will kill the mother if not ended, and the fetus will never be viable. Other times the fetus is already dead, but since the law doesn't actually consider the fetus a person, it can't be removed due to abortion bans, and the woman is forced to carry a dead parasite and risk fatal sepsis.
All of this should be left to the woman, her doctor, her circumstances and her conscience, not a bunch of old men in legislatures and courts.
> All of this should be left to the woman, her doctor, her circumstances and her conscience I agree completely, however if we are contending with the counter argument that a fetus does become a "person" at some point late in the pregnancy, having an abortion after this point for no other reason than "I don't feel like it/ I changed my mind" would by definition have to be murder. The "competing rights to life" argument would not apply here.
Do you think the majority of democrats would support granting "personhood" to the fetus at some late stage in the pregnancy if conservatives would support legislating abortion into law (abortions before the fetus reaches personhood for any reason, after which only if the doctor believes the mother's life to be in danger.) Or this is too much of a compromise, women should be able to abort at any time for any reason?
Assuming the child isn't a danger to the mother, it just seems like punishing the child for who their father was.
People who claim they care about the fetus' rights, and that they oppose abortion from this point of view, are either hypocritical or haven't given it enough thought. If they did, they would at best insist upon the woman carrying the fetus until it becomes viable, then having the right to a C-section where it is removed and placed on life support, and given up for adoption. But no one holds this position.
In reality, people use the rhetoric of the fetus' rights to muddy the waters, and to avoid admitting that they don't believe women have a right to control their own bodies. They hold collectivist views that are typical of conservatives, who believe all people should be subservient to the social fabric (while espousing individualistic views when it comes time for the social fabric to help those same people in turn) - no free sex, no freedom to use drugs, etc