Ain’t never been any logic I could see in the pro-choice world. And debates on the topic can get pretty annoying, pretty fast, for everyone. Pro-lifers expose the inconsistencies and pro-choicers splutter some variation of “I’m entitled to my entitlements!”
Anyhoo, great article here highlighting how people who are pro-choice should not be uncomfortable with “selective reduction.” It’s abortion, plain and simple, and if we’re AOK with that (and remember, we’re all supposed to be) then choosing which fetus of twins or triplets should live is really all the same.
This bifurcated mindset permeates pro-choice thinking. Embryos fertilized for procreation are embryos; embryos cloned for research are “activated eggs.” A fetus you want is a baby; a fetus you don’t want is a pregnancy. Under federal law, anyone who injures or kills a “child in utero” during a violent crime gets the same punishment as if he had injured or killed “the unborn child’s mother,” but no such penalty applies to “an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman . has been obtained.”
Reduction destroys this distinction. It combines, in a single pregnancy, a wanted and an unwanted fetus. In the case of identical twins, even their genomes are indistinguishable. You can’t pretend that one is precious and the other is just tissue. You’re killing the same creature to which you’re dedicating your life.
by 
Don’t know if you’ve seen this related article at the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/magazine/the-two-minus-one-pregnancy.html
I found it via Althouse http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/08/what-is-it-about-terminating-half-twin.html and particularly liked this from the comments:
Saint Croix said…
“This upsets people because the strongest argument for abortion is that a woman should not be pregnant against her will.
But you can’t argue this woman was pregnant against her will. She paid thousands of dollars to become pregnant. She chose pregnancy. And then she changed her mind. “I didn’t want two. I wanted one.”
Or, “I didn’t want a girl, I wanted a boy.”
The Supreme Court has defined the baby in the womb as a commodity. That is the ugly truth of Roe v. Wade. And that truth smacks us in the face when people spend money to purchase a baby and then want a refund. “That’s not what I ordered.” Wrong size, wrong color, too many.
Commodities.
We have defined a baby in the womb as property.
Of course, all small children are the property of their parents. They belong to us. But we recognize they are human beings, and they have rights independent of our will.
The unborn have no rights. They are nothing but property. An unborn infant does not become a person until she is free of her mother.
It’s like the Supreme Court defined the womb as a slave state. Birth is freedom. But until you are free, you are property.
When you are born, you are free of your mother. Now, finally, the Supreme Court recognizes your humanity. Until that magical day, you are nothing. The Supreme Court has said so.
“We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.”
They do not care if it’s a homicide. They haven’t even thought about it. And this is not to say that every abortion is a homicide (IUD is not a homicide). And we know this because there are laws on the books in regard to when people die. Laws that we could and should apply to the unborn. But first we have to recognize they are human.”