[sourcery]

I’m actually neutral on abortion. Reason: In the case of rape, the unwilling parent has incurred no such obligation. And if it’s not rape, it’s not clear that causing a being to come to life creates any such obligation. Perhaps it does, and perhaps it doesn’t. I have been unable to prove or disprove that theory, and no one has been able to convince me one way or the other.

[DuncanWaring]

We don’t kill the individual who commits the rape; why would we kill the person who is the result of a rape?

[Mrs. Don-o]

The argument from strict liability for the consequences of consensual sexual intercourse, is a libertarian and secular justice argument. It does not depend on "the unknown" or "the unknowable" but is verifiable independent of supernatural revelation. There's no reason which its reasonableness should not compel assent.

As for pregnancy subsequent to rape, it is a "competing goods" situation. Yes, the pregnant woman has a right to physical autonomy. However, the human offspring, who is at every point a bodily human being, has that same right.

Therefore the unborn human being has a right not to be aggressed against (just as the mother had that right, which was violated: but violated by the rapist, not by the baby!) The only way to terminate this "conflict pregnancy" in such a way that both parties, the mother and the baby, can peacefully go forward with their own lives, is childbirth.