[ceilingcorner]

There are many people that aren’t religious extremists who think that abortion is, at best, extremely morally problematic. It’s fundamentally a question about the definition of life, not the adherence to certain religious beliefs.

[mediaman]

Poll data suggests that the plurality of the population do not support third-trimester abortions, but neither do they support a prohibition on first-trimester.

The reality is that what we consider a "life" is graduated, and the fetus progresses along that continuum during gestation. Most people know this intuitively, which is why popular opinion generally falls where it does. (See, for example, the Pew polls on the subject of abortion and trimesters.)

We struggle to draw a bright-line to say, "this is where life begins," because there is not really a point where life "begins," merely a long series of points where it shifts by degree from "no life" to "life."

As a society though we still are tasked with drawing this line and it is an arbitrary line. But it is illogical for it to begin at the very start of the continuum, or at the very end. The beginning because it is silly and unscientific to pretend as though some tiny clump of cells has any more life than a wart, and it comes at great cost to women's autonomy; the end because it is illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to birth is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after. To believe that the moment is at either end is thoughtless dogmatism.

Where should the line be? Pick a point. Give the woman enough time to be able to know that she is pregnant, to plan and provide for her bodily autonomy to make her own life choices, and to deal with lead times at clinics. And then draw a line where the choice has been made. Most people believe that line is somewhere around the end of the first trimester or early part of the second.

[tromp]

> the end because it is illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to birth is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after. To believe that the moment is at either end is thoughtless dogmatism. > Where should the line be? Pick a point

But in your own words, isn't it similarly illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to that point is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after.

[poulsbohemian]

Actually, the way you are framing it is a significant cause of the problem. In many cases, we are talking about a strictly amoral health care concern, IE: a clump of cells that are going to kill a woman if she doesn't get the necessary health care. It has absolutely nothing to do with a baby or life and everything to do with her bleeding out. THAT is the thing the right-wing ignores and wants you to ignore too. So they show you pictures of babies, they talk about babies, they come up with fictitious terms like "third-trimester abortion" because it's the only way they can frame the issue to rile up their base.