To me, popular abortion rhetoric is unnecessarily appalling. The Pro-life people call their opponents baby-killers and the pro-choice people accuse their opponents of opposing women's rights. This isn't productive, and it certainly isn't pretty.
What can we do better? Well, lets start with intellectual empathy.
It is true that if the thing growing inside the mother (X), is morally equivalent to a born baby, then mothers who abort are morally equivalent to murderers.
But if it's true that X is not morally equivalent to a born baby, then to prevent abortion deprives women of the fundamental right to their bodies.
Pretend like you're on the other side, or at least pretend like you're uncertain for a moment. These points only imply that the stakes are high either way, but it doesn't help anyone decide whether X really is morally equivalent to a baby. So why should it persuade anyone?
A better way is stop focusing on what your view implies, and instead maintain focus on the crux of the dispute. Keep your eye on the ball. In this case, the ball is the uterus. The more similar X is to a born baby, the more pro-life we should be. The less similar X is to a born baby, the more pro-choice we should be. Because all current theories about rights or dignity and who deserves them are vague at best, I don't think we can do better than an educated guess.
Here's the thing about educated guesses. The more educated they are, the better the guess will be. Not only will the education on the development of X move people toward a more accurate view of abortion, it'll help clean up this vile and ugly debate.
