I'm in the same space of thought as Sin on this one. I think it is a moral decision everyone is entitled to make for themselves, whether they'd support it. Legislating that decision is unwise, especially given it's affinity with religion, and secularism is up there with an accountable police force and representative parliamentary democracy as the three things I think are the most important in society.

New Zealand inhabits a funny legal space on this issue. Abortions are illegal at all times here, unless a doctor is able to determine that carrying a child to term will cause significant harm to the mother. However many doctors are willing to say that any child is able to give any woman significant mental harm if the child is unwanted. So abortions can be obtained on demand. A doctor not willing to do this is required to refer you to a doctor who will. It's a weird, happy medium. Conservatives are happy because by the letter of the law it is not legal. Liberals are happy because you can still get an abortion if you want one. This situation has stood since the 1980s and no one has seriously clamoured to change it since. I'm happy with this, given my personal misgivings on the practice of abortion, but my feelings that it is still not my decision to make for other people. It also means that the type of people who support strong pro-life politics do not really have a platform for their other agendas, which I feel would be strongly anti-secular. Their are no classically socially-conservative parties in Parliament. The only one that is polled around 4% in the last election (its first election), which is 1% too few to get any seats in the national assembly.

I do think that getting an abortion is a decision for a couple, if there is a couple involved. If the male wants to abdicate his child raising responsibilities, and the female does not, the male is currently legally bound to pay child support until the child comes of age. That many men don't despite the requirement is beside the point; if a woman is entitled to choose, so is the male. That's only equitable.

My personal perspective is that abortion kills something living. Rowan asked earlier why I care if some assortment of cells in a uterus dies when I am happy to eat animals. I think that any unique arrangement of human genetic information in a cell capable of cell division is a unique human person. As I consider all human persons to be equal, I extend the same rights and protections to this person as I reserve for myself. In particular, no one has the right to kill me. As this person is equal to me, I do not think people should have the right to kill it. However, as I concede that this is an opinion clearly open to debate, I feel that people are entitled to make their own decisions regarding it, so I do not want my opinions legislated for. I am willing to eat animals that are killed by others on my behalf because those animals are not human, and not subject to the same protection as humans. As to the contention that an abortion is OK because the being that is being destroyed is not self-aware... well, I can take you to a hospital or a school for disabled people who are not entirely self-aware and/or incapable of feeling pain. Why don't we kill them? Because they're still human, and they are our equals. I do not see the distinction between them and an unborn person. One is just older. They are both (depending on the nature of the disability) incapable of feeling pain, not self-aware, and entirely dependent on others.