Here is what I mean by this question.
Are those of you who are such strong advocates for animal rights also advocates for unborn children?
If you answer "no," then please explain to me why it is barbaric to kill an animal for food/fur but not barbaric to kill an unborn baby with a beating heart and who might even have a viable shot of surviving outside the mother's womb?
To me, this has nothing to do with religion or politics.
I believe it is a very basic concept of what determines right and wrong.
It's not that simple. What the issue of abortion really comes down to is, "Is a woman a full human being with the right to control her own body?" An anti-abortion stance is incompatible with the belief that women are full human beings. You've given birth before, so you know that it's no walk in the park--would you want to be forced to carry a child to term, then give birth to it? How about if the pregnancy is the result of a rape? How about if the pregnancy threatens both your life and the life of the fetus?
What we forget in this day and time is that pregnancy and birth can still be dangerous to the mother. Yes, there are still women, even here in the United States, who die in childbirth. In the rest of the world, pregnancy, childbirth, and botched abortion attempts (in places where abortion is illegal, or difficult for poor women to obtain), which are all placed in the category of "maternal mortality", are a top (perhaps even the number one) cause of death for women of childbearing age.
A person who is anti-abortion is saying that a woman does not have complete rights over her own body. A fetus, at any stage of development, is still a part of the mother's body. Certainly, in the first and second trimesters, the embryo/fetus cannot even survive as an entity separate from the mother. Any person, I believe, should have complete control of his or her own body. If I get shot, I would like the rights to have the bullet removed from my body. If one of my kidneys fail, I would like to have the rights to have it removed from my body. If (deity or deities forbid) I get cancer, I would like the rights to have the tumor removed from my body.
I do not want to live in a world where I am not in complete control over my own body. I do not want to live in a world where I am not a full human being.