I also disagree with @VoodooV's gun analogy, but for a different reason: some people would really, really like to be in a situation where they'd get to "use" their gun, whereas I challenge anyone to find me a single woman who would want to have an abortion. Abortions are a necessary "evil": not "evil" in the conservative-religious sense, but in the sense that no-one wants to have one, but sometimes it is the only ethical choice to make.

In a perfect world, everyone would be able to turn on and off the reproductive aspect of sex at will, and maybe medicine will allow us that one day. But until then abortion is a necessity, and not only for cases of rape, incest or ripped condoms. I won't address the troll, but @ReverendTed, do you truly think a woman who - because of emotional manipulation/coercion (e.g. "I don't feel anything with a condom"), or for lack of education, intelligence, or presence of spirit (e.g. drunk) - has unprotected sex, should be "punished" (so to speak) with a life-long responsibility of a human life, despite being perhaps emotionally, financially and/or psychologically incapable of raising it properly? A fate which would moreover punish an innocent child for its whole life (something the non-solution of adoption only makes worse btw)?

When a biker who was not wearing a helmet falls and opens his forehead, do you tell him "tough luck, should've worn a helmet, no doctors for you"? Or, closer to the subject at hand, shouldn't STDs be left untreated? You chose to have sex, you didn't take all the precautions, now live with the itchy consequences! Seriously, having to get an abortion because you were not careful is ample punishment enough. Not because you're "murdering" a human being or other such manipulative BS (although many are pressured into feeling that guilt) but because it is an invasive and disagreeable medical procedure (not to mention the psychological aspects, e.g. the possibility of regret).

This has been said ad nauseam before: if you want there to be less abortions, there needs to be more education (including sex ed, but not only) and easy access to contraception. Speaking of contraception, I look forward to the day they invent a version of the pill for men (soon?); why should women bear all the birth control responsibility?

_{As for the question of when a ball of cells becomes a human being, I've addressed the subject elsewhere on the Sift (whose search function is effin' up on me right now; I'll post link when I find it).}