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Originally Posted by smooth
If we draw the line at citizenship rather than viability or whatever value we historically or currently place on human life (having agreed that there is no room for it in this discussion), then we will arrive at a coherent perspective on how the law should operate in this domain.
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My main objection to this is that it is not even remotely based on the popular explanations for the law. In other words, it is a law that has little to no relation to those whom it applies.
As for the state monopoly on violence, I do not subscribe to that belief either. The state, in my opinion, only has the authority to preserve and protect rights. If any violence does not directly affect the rights of another, the state has no authority over that violence, notwithstanding precedence. Similarly, I do not believe the state can allow or disallow anything that does not directly affect the rights of another. As such, I do not believe the state "allows" women to exert control over their bodies. Besides, a woman's actions to her self and a person's actions to a seperate person, or another person's property, are completely different issues.
Your final point is precisely why your porposed alternative cannot work in conjunction with public thought: it is essentially representative of a totalitarian state. Women may have abortions because the state "allows" them to. The state may, at any time, after self-defining a "compelling reason," then criminalize one's private actions. Personally, I do not want laws based on logic that allows such a state to exist.