Whatever euphemism one might employ, ‘termination’, ‘ending’, a removal procedure, 'a surgical procedure’ (sounds like military lingo, “a surgical strike targeting terrorists”), or my new favorite from biology, “the arrest of development of an organ”,  the root action is causing the cessation of what had existed especially living. Within the very notion and definition of abortion, there is the ontological admission that there exists something and that something is killed — no, sorry, the arrest of the development of what existed.

     For some, killing is wrong, thus the debate / discussion ends there.

     The other side would posit “yeah, it is killing something, but . . .” followed by a set of qualifiers, contextuals, and exceptions. For their side, the argument is about the measure of degree or under what conditions is killing allowable, from which various factions and attitudes are derived against the anti-abortionists.

     From this, there are two major — not necessarily strongest, positions. The first goes back to Aristotle: actuality vs potentiality. For Aristotle et. al., a baby is not a baby until a baby is actually a baby. Before birth or any prenatal state is but a potential baby. So one aspect of the abortion debate argues over where to draw the Dedekind cut, if you will, of where life begins; some say at conception, while others mark it at an x number of weeks, and yet others still say all the way up to y number of hours after birth.

     So the other position is arguing that there are certain conditions under which killing is acceptable or desirable compared to an alternative. “Sure, killing is bad, but there are times when killing can result in something good or beneficial, such as a the assassination of Hitler. We are all against mass shootings, to be sure, but mass shooting a bunch of Nazis seems like a good thing.” They would claim there are some situations in which would be better to abort than not.

     Can rattle off a finite number of exceptions for which an abortion is the better option and judge justification of each on a case by case bases. An extreme take on this avenue is wanting to reserve prerogative for all exceptions beyond the rarity of conception from a rape. Of course, sufficient well-crafted or encompassing exceptions effectually nullify any prohibition.

     I am not ignoring the popular, and emotive, arguments for abortion, “my body, my choice”, otherwise, the “body autonomy” argument.

     There is a huge body — no pun intended, of literature on the topic of body autonomy alone which abortion is a subordinate topic. Where body autonomy applies to abortion depends upon the Aristotelian position one has. If they hold the view potential life has equal value to actual life, then there is more than one body of concern, to say nothing of the dad.

     ‘Choice’ is a word that carries a certain amount of baggage. The prerogative of exercising choice and the privilege of having rights is responsibility.

     An interesting caveat is to date the technology exists to where at a certain level of development, if unwanted or for whatever reason, can transplant a prenatal baby into another womb, man, or, dare I say, test tube, and remain there until full maturation.