Not if you believe that life begins at conception. If you truly believe that life begins at conception, that means that any abortion would be killing a human being, and even killing a human being to prevent psychological damage is not a complete defense to murder. It is an excuse, but not a justification.
You seem to be under the opinion that because your belief is principled or because it's a logical extension of existing, commonplace reasoning (i.e., that life begins at conception), it's not radical.
I never said that. He said that believing that life begins at conception is not radical. My only point was that if you truly believe that life begins at conception, then you must logically say that abortion may be outlawed in the instance of rape.
And from the standpoint of one who believes that life does begin at conception, it is just as radical to say that abortion is OK in an instance of rape, because you're saying it is ok to commit murder. It's all about the premise that you start with.
The observation that only an intended conception is a voluntary act and others are not voluntary, in view of the technology of contraception and the legal concept that any involuntary sex or sex that cannot legally be consensual is some form of rape mandates that abortion be available. Likewise some pregnancies can be harmful or even fatal to the female whom an anti-abortionist considers obliged to carry the pre-born to term. The idea that any developing fetus or embryo is a "gift from God" ignores that some of those "gifts" can be extremely inappropriate.
I posit this: what if some genetic test can demonstrate that the pre-born will have the genetic makeup that creates or allows a sociopathic personality? If one wishes to reduce the frequency of abortions, then maybe it would be wise to create an economic climate more friendly toward infants -- one in which economic distress that brings hardships to the working poor so that economic elites can enjoy unrestrained indulgence is no longer the norm.
