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Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Abortion is always tragic, and should be rare (but still safe and legal)

My view of abortion is that it should be safe and legal but as rare as possible, as it is always tragic to lose a baby.

I have had multiple conversations with friends and family over the years, and seen dozens of posts online, about women (and men) mourning miscarriages. Losing a pregnancy you wanted \*feels\* tragic, and both mother and father often feel a sense of grief after a miscarriage that they struggle to process.

To me, that feels out of sync with the commonly-expressed liberal view that, until shortly before due date, the fetus is "just a blob of tissue" and shouldn't be thought of as a human being. If a fetus at 2-3 months isn't a human being deserving of love and respect and life, why do parents so often grieve after a miscarriage?

And, given that would-be parents do often grieve after a miscarriage, and abortion is essentially a medically-induced miscarriage, isn't it natural to grieve after an abortion as well? The mother should still absolutely have the right to terminate the pregnancy, though. 

In my view, abortion is similar to shooting someone in self defense. I never \*want\* to have to hurt someone who is threatening my life and freedom, but if there is no other way to protect my autonomy,  my body, my life, then it is justifiable. But it's still tragic to take a life, and we should avoid it as much as possible. 

I see the unborn baby as a human being, with a right to life, but their right to life does not entitle them to the use of my body or my care and resources after it is born. If I do not want to carry and support the child, I should not be forced to do so.

The analogous self defense situation might be: a would-be thief who has no money and is starving breaks into my house looking to rob me so that they can buy food. They have a right to life, and in a better world I or someone else might be more charitable and give them money or food so that they don't feel a need to steal, but in the moment when they break into my home and threaten me or my family their right to life does not entitle them to steal from me. I am justified in defending myself and my property with force, up to and including killing them if there is no other option. It is always tragic to take a life, but my right to be secure in my body and in my property takes priority in this situation.

Abortion is similar. The mother's rights take priority over those of the unborn child, but to deny the unborn child has any status as a human being at all, to deny that the child has rights of it's own, and to deny the natural feelings of tragedy, loss, and guilt associated with abortion, is misguided.

Marked NSFW for sensitive content.
gpt
> If a fetus at 2-3 months isn't a human being deserving of love and respect and life, why do parents so often grieve after a miscarriage?

Parents who want to have a child will certainly grieve after a miscarriage. But people who are struggling to conceive will also "grieve" with each failed attempt at conception as well. The degree of pain is different whether it's just taken a few times, or of they've been trying to get pregnant for years, or if they've tried various (often expensive) medical interventions. But when these fail, it can be emotionally devastating. And in these cases, there's *literally* no life form by anyone's definition. The conception didn't even happen.

And once you have this very real scenario on one end of the spectrum, imagine of that same family that struggled for years to conceive at all now has a miscarriage at 3 months. It's devastating, but that devastation is on a continuum with the emotions felt while trying to conceive. Point being, the grief felt over failure to even conceive demonstrates the reality, validity, and intensity of grief does not require a realized human life (or baby, if you will) of any kind. We can grieve for the lost potential at any stage of the process without necessarily attributing any special status, rights or intrinsic value to the fetus beyond it's potential to become something that the prospective parents wanted.