i might say that the abortion thing bewilders me. i think henry has to be right that there's something wrong with the question of when (human) life begins, which sounds empirical but doesn't actually seem to be. the question might be: who (or what) counts, morally, and how much? the problem for me is like this: killing a newborn baby strikes me as a monstrous crime. but it's not the moment of birth that fully accounts for this: at the moment before the baby still counts. so when does it not count? you can't fix the point but you can't not ask, exactly. of course there could be wrong things that people do with their own bodies: lying, for example, in certain circumstances. but the idea that the abortion question is *only*  about what women can do with their bodies begs the question, which is precisely whether and when we've got another human being that counts, morally. a fetus both is and is not a part of its mother's body.

my mother, both my wives (mothers of my children) etc have had abortions. they're not murderers. and i would describe myself as pro-choice. but i just want to say that the idea also gives me a touch of nausea; i am, really, morally squeamish about it. so i don't really know what questions to answer to try to develop a moral position. people's autonomy and control of their bodies and their sexuality etc is a fundamental value of mine, of course. but that's not the only value in play and all i can say is..i'm worried about this whole thing.

true obama has said he doesn't know when life begins, that that's "above his pay grade." that's a good place to start, and he can, e.g., because he's not a catholic.
but you can't just say: some people, like embezzlers, think embezzling is ok, and i'm not willing to impose my beliefs by law. no one hesitates except when there's an actual political price for doing so: hence the hypocrisy. or you can't say that unless you're an anarchist, which would then make one wonder how you can hold or aspire to hold political office.

now if you are pro-choice on the grounds that the only question is a woman's control of her own body, then i would ask you, first, to oppose all drug laws and the like, all paternalist legislation. and i would point out that that the current boilerplate - "we can all agree that we should work to reduce the number of abortions" - is incomprehensible. *why* should we, if it's just about a woman's autonomy? because in general we want to reduce elective medical procedures? so do we all agree we need to reduce the number of liposuctions or botox injections? what's the issue?