Twin reduction abortions: Why do they trouble pro-choicers?

Twin reduction abortions: Why do they trouble pro-choicers? - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine: To pro-lifers and hardcore pro-choicers, this queasiness [about pregnancy "reduction"] seems odd. After all, a reduction is an abortion. If anything, reduction should be less problematic than ordinary abortion, since one life is deliberately being spared. Why, then, does reduction unsettle so many pro-choicers?

For some, the issue seems to be a consumer mentality in assisted reproduction. For others, it's the deliberateness of getting pregnant, especially by IVF, without being prepared to accept the consequences. But the main problem with reduction is that it breaches a wall at the center of pro-choice psychology. It exposes the equality between the offspring we raise and the offspring we abort.


. . . 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.

Related:
Times article shows IVF is not about the children
In defense of IVF twins
Aborting one healthy twin