On Our Word, artemisia has written a wonderfully concise primer on why a woman has a right to abortion -- it gets down to fundamental human rights.

At the cornerstone of western philosophy, morality, and jurisprudence is the concept of individual sovereignty. It is the notion that free individuals have the fundamental right to self determination, the right to go about their lives and choose their courses of action without interference.

Because all individuals are imbued with that fundamental right, it is a fundamental principle that your right to to swing your arms ends at the tip of my nose. In other words, you are free to do whatever you want, so long as it doesn't hurt others.

Those who are against a woman's right to choose recognize this. They argue that once conception occurs a sovereign individual has been created that has its own right to existence. Unfortunately, they stop there. The anti-choice position is that a woman's right to do what she wants with her own body ends at the moment her action causes harm to the sovereign individual in her uterus. Thus, not only does a woman not have a right to terminate her pregnancy, but she also doesn't have the right to engage in any behavior that could harm the sovereign individual inside her. Hence you see supporters of this position also urging incarceration of pregnant women who drink or use drugs.

However, this notion that a sovereign individual is created at conception is fundamentally flawed. Even conceding, for the sake of argument, that human life begins at conception, it does not follow that this new life is imbued with a fundamental sovereignty, a right to life, at that moment. Indeed, very basic precepts of western philosophy, morality, and jurisprudence indicate that this fundamental right to life does not begin a conception.

Inherent to individual sovereignty is the recognition that an individual has domain over their own body. A corrollary to the principle that "your right to swing your arms ends at the tip of my nose" is the concept of consent. Your arms can only have contact with the tip of my nose if I give my consent. An individual is not required to give up any part of their body without consent. Thus, your right to life ends at the moment you require the use of my kidney to live. I may choose to donate my kidney, or the temporary use of it, to you but the law cannot require me to do so. No individual has a greater right to my own body than me. At the moment you have a greater right over my body than I do, I am enslaved.

There's more.

Also recommended are her two long comments in this thread where a couple of seemingly Dobsonites have set up soap boxes. One snippet:

frankly, i'm not interested in arguing the science of when life begins or what constitutes a human being. to me, it is irrelevant to the issue of whether a woman has a right to keep her own biology to herself. providing her biology to carry a pregnancy to term is a wonderous gift that a woman gives to an emerging life. but it is a gift that must be made voluntarily. if she does not have the right to choose whether or not to give her biology, then she is reduced to the status of breeding stock. we don't grant cows the right to decide whether they will get pregnant or give milk or die in order to feed a human being. but as human beings, we have the right to decide with whom we share our biology and when.

And responding to one man's assertion that an acorn = an oak tree and a fertilized ovum = a human being:

yes, scientifically an acorn is of the species oak. but there is a reason science and language give names to different stages of development. there is a reason we have the terms acorn, sapling, oak tree. each describes a different mode of existence. an acorn doesn't perform photosynthesis. so while acorn and oak tree may both be of the species "oak", it does not follow that acorn = oak tree.

likewise, a blastocyst and a 5 day old baby may both be of the species "human". but that does not mean that blastocyst = baby. there is no such thing as an "unborn baby." a blastocyst, zygote, embryo, or fetus cannot survive without the biology of a host. a baby can.

And this point-by-point response is worth reading in whole.

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