If you think of abortion from the “killing is killing” standpoint, have you never picked a flower, eaten fish, or even washed your hands? Everything, even plants and bacteria are technically living things, and if killing is killing, each one of us is an every day murderer. Even vegans and environmentalists could be considered horrible people if it were as simple as that. Lumberjacks and butchers would be destined to hell just by default. Yet we have excuses for everything we do. We wash our hands because it’s sanitary, we eat beef because it tastes good, we mow the lawn because we need a place to play tackle football or what have you. Both men and women make decisions like these daily. To mow or not to mow? To eat a steak and shrimp or a BLT salad? To abort a growing cell mass not even the size of an acorn to prevent unnecessary financial hemorrhage, unwanted bodily changes and weight gain, and major lifestyle changes all to another person into a world that cannot care for it properly?
If you are itching to interject with the idea of adoption, consider overpopulation. Every year, at least 91 million humans are born in excess of those who die. Consider the age of the pregnant woman in question. How old is she? If she is relatively young, her pregnancy is most likely unplanned and unwanted by her family. If she is still a minor, her parents play a huge role in whether or not the pregnancy is to be aborted, and they deserve to know because she is still their child. But if the woman is an adult, it is her decision whether or not to keep the child. Of course her decision may be influenced by her family, her friends, the father, abortion protesters, pastors, etc., it is ultimately her choice. To have the child would mean sacrificing her body, making major changes to certain elements of her lifestyle, spending all the money necessary to cover medical bills and all the clothes, food, diapers, toys, and furniture a child requires for at least the first 18 years of its life. If she is willing to do this, good for her. If not, she shouldn’t have to.
If you want to argue that it’s about responsibility for your own actions, I agree. If she is grown enough to have sex then she is grown enough to live with the consequences. Though the initial response most women experience after an abortion is relief, abortion can come packaged with guilt, sorrow, regret (even if she feels she made the right decision), desire to get pregnant again (either to compensate for the lost child or to go through abortion again to strengthen her personal belief in it), and irrational fear of losing other loved ones. Over time, there are many ways to overcome post-abortion symptoms, but isn’t suffering from them consequence enough? If you have never experienced this, you cannot compare it to the alternative consequence: having to care for a child that she simply cannot care for properly.