I've found it really informative reading this.
to all of you who have been recounted your deeply moving, personal experiences - regardless of which side of the debate you were on. This is a topic that should never lose sight of the personal impact even when recognising there is a bigger picture.
I would call myself pro-choice, but from reading this thread I realise I have my own beliefs and prejudices and may not be as pro choice as I first thought. That leaves me wanting to find out more to develop my thinking on this.
I do not believe in a soul separate to the body and from what I know about brain development in the developing foetus, particularly the later stages of neural connections after the parts of the brain have already formed, I do not believe a baby is a baby until quite late.
Based on this, I believe that women should be able to access abortion as easily as they can any other medical procedure, with only one Dr being involved and without having to travel. I think this should be the case certainly for the first 2 trimesters, regardless of concerns about how such young foetuses can now be considered viable due to advances in technology. The point with viability IMO is that life cannot be sustained without signifiant medical intervention and therefore it is a straw man argument to use this to argue that the foetus in utero is already a viable life.
I have an ethical dilemma over late stage abortions and I realise I have a lot left to learn about this. My instinct tells me that, if legal, the overwhelming majority of women are simply NOT going to demand an abortion at this stage - with all the physical trauma that would involve - unless they honestly, genuinely believed there was no other way. I just don't buy into the argument that scorned women will do this to punish their recent exes, or feckless women will do this because they've somehow just changed their mind. Statistically speaking you may find a small number who would do this, but I'd argue such thoughts indicate at best a mental illness/personality disorder that requires treatment, and at worst should make it very clear that such women should definitely not be forced into rearing a child who will bear the fall out.
I have other concerns about women being bullied by men/wider families into aborting a child (particularly in cases where honour-based violence may be an issue), and we would need to think about how we could ensure we struck the right balance between ensuring we are asking women enough questions to ensure this isn't happening, and not asking so many we bully them out of having an abortion that is actually the right thing for them.
For the same reasons, although I think we should be allowing women to have an abortion just because they don't want a baby, I don't think we should be taking a 'no questions asked' approach either. Some women who have repeat abortions do so because they are denied access to reliable contraception. We should be picking up on this and trying to offer help.
It's a very complex issue and one I still haven't completely articulated my thoughts on, but in general I see myself as very much pro choice.