There is always the question of "best for whom". Does the right of the host disappear at the instant of conception? In cases of rape? Incest? Birth defect? Who gets to decide whose right takes precedence?
Good questions.
The Realities of Rights with respect to the scientific reality that a conception is a person says that the newly conceived human being has the
right of way, as otherwise the egregious bias of
ageism is committed.
But those who are utilitarian first (whatever is best for me) and ontological a distant ways third (whatever is true and right) will often commit sophistry in an attempt to fool themselves ontologically into a "justification" for their utilitarianism!
In matters of a persons being secure in themselves, I have to come down on the side of woman deciding the fate of her offspring as long as it is inside her,
Yes, security of person is a major class of rights indeed, and on that basis one might argue that a woman's self defense is a right in this matter.
However, the right to life supercedes security of person, and thus the right to life of the newly conceived person rightly holds sway over the woman's claim of security of person.
Unless, of course, the newly conceived person is indeed directly and truly threatening the life of the woman. Then it is a matter of survival of the fittest, and we are not to fault the mother if she wins (which she likely will if she chooses to fight) ... though she is always left with remorse when she wins resulting in the death of her offspring.
But if the newly conceived person is not a reasonable and customary threat to the woman's very life, then the newly conceived person's right to life trumps the woman's falsely alleged security of person.
With respect to truth and rights, an honest woman needs to consider these matters before consenting to sex, as does a man, and with regard to rape and the like, that is a tragedy, but two wrongs do not make a right.
living as a parasite in her body,
The parasite sophistry was defeated long ago.
Scientifically speaking, to be a parasite in
this matter, the newly conceived person would have to be of a
different species.
Since the newly conceived person is of the same species, the term "parasite" is simply misapplied in error.
and unable to live outside of her.
In our likewise bare essentials state, we adult human beings are also unable to live outside of
our natural habitat: outside of the hospitable surface of planet Earth.
As you can see, that an entity is unable to live out of its natural habitat is irrelevant to this discussion.
Once viability is reached, then it becomes a person.
To each their own utilitarian idiosyncracy.
But science and definitive propriety disagrees with you.
The objectivity of science and definitive propriety, which also matches intuitive obvious reality, does indeed successfully fly in the face of pre-conceived ideological coping mechanisms of
every sophistry.
The early Christian church argued that only at birth did a soul enter the body and it became a person.
Irrelevant.
Though I understand your beef with Christianity, Christianity is a religion, and this matter is not about religion.
Besides, there is no scientific or intuitive indication that there even is such a thing as a "soul" ... and such likely specious things as "souls" and "before/after life" are likely fantasy coping manifestations of a psyche that is suffering sufficient fear of the reality of its own mortality, a collective phenomena that's ages old in our historically unsafe world where the reality of rights was disrespected and disease and famine plagued the planet.
Thus any religion's argument on when a person becomes a person is irrelevant, and if it disagrees with the obvious scientific reality of modern-day humanity, it is not rationally given credence.
Their reasoning was that such a huge percentage of conceptions ended in no birth that it didn't make any sense for God to instill a soul until the baby was born (viability from their perspective).
Whatever their reasoning
truly was, remains irrelevant.
Science has spoken ... and religion is meaningless in this matter.
I am not a fan of abortion, but I am also not a fan of telling women what they can do with their bodies and the contents of their bodies.
Who rationally and with respect to the right to life and the right of freedom of action is a fan of either abortion or telling women what they can do with the contents of their bodies respectively?
The point of the initial posts of this thread is to present modern scientific knowledge reflecting humanity's progress in awareness, and the impact of this progress in awareness on human behavior.
We may not like the truth, but if we don't respect it once we've learned it, the neuropsychological damage we can do to ourselves is significant.
It's a tough call for
utilitarians, maybe.
But for ontologicians who respect the life state-of-being of themselves and others it's a piece of cake call, really.
and the only real way to solve it is for us to find better ways of preventing pregnancy.
Though it's not the only way, preventing
conception when it is not desired is indeed a major, major method of solving said problem.
Nevertheless, the motivation to create and implement new state-of-the-art conception prevention pharmaceuticals (that lop of the tails of sperm and harden the egg shell to impenetrability after release and the like) will likely come from realizing the truth that a newly conceived individual human being is a person rightly endowed with the foundational overriding right to life, and thus taking that life when the mother's life is not directly threatened where no other recourse is safe, is indeed
murder.
That realization will become sufficient motivation to move these new products through testing and into the marketplace.
