Here’s an example of puny humans trying to be “rational”. Poor little things really are doing their best.
Here is another way to frame the problem: Legally a woman should have a right to choose, but morally, the territory is more shadowy.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Here’s the “problem”: Where does human life begin?
Notice that they don’t even address that “problem”? The words “baby” and “child” are employed, with one exception.
“If a father is willing to legally commit to raising a child with no help from the mother he should be able to obtain an injunction against the abortion of the fetus he helped create.” That point conjured images of women chained to a bed forced to continue a pregnancy against their will, and he hadn’t meant it.
Hell, if it’s a “fetus” I don’t care if you abort twelve months after conception. But is this bone of contention a “fetus” or a “baby”? You’d probably expect me to back up this Mr. Conley. After all,
“Well, I am asking people to put aside their feelings and think in a more rational way.”
No, Mr. Social Scientist, that’s not right. Asking people to be slightly less irrational isn’t the same as asking them to be rational. In fact, hard-won experience has taught me that asking people to be rational is not rational. Individuals can think; “people” cannot.
If you can get folks to set aside their feelings, Mr. Conley…and, for the record, you can’t…the right question isn’t about the man or the woman. The right question is, when does that thing become a human being?
If at conception, then neither the man nor the woman has a right to abort it. If later, both adults…biological adults…have the right to disavow that cancerous clump of cells at any stage of its unwanted growth. Obviously.
Except that it’s not obvious to Mr. Conley, Ms. Roiphe, or a single freakin’ one of the commenters I could force myself to read.
And let’s stop pretending that the current child welfare laws are about the child, when in reality – they are about ensuring that women have more rights than men – because honestly ? It’s not working out very well.
Oh. My apologies, “Kitwench Ferret”. You’re the exception that proves the rule.
World's Only Rational Man 
You know my stance. The fetus is 100% human and alive. The DNA says so and the cells are growing. Case closed.
See, what difference does it make? Let’s say we have a child with a mental defect. So, if that child is born, grows 20 years and is then killed, then it’s murder. But if I kill it while it’s still in the womb, it’s perfectly fine, then it’s a legal abortion. What’s the difference? It’s the same child, with the same DNA, with the same life.
So when does it become a human? The moment egg and sperm mix and start multiplying. Cause that’s when we have everything we need to build a human. We have the full set of DNA, and we have the multiplying cells. Case closed.