Lack of capacity is one of the few legitimate reasons to deny someone’s rights. All societies throughout history have acknowledged that children have fewer and weaker rights than adults based on their lack of capacity. And unborn children have the fewest and weakest rights of all. There is no reason to assume that an unborn child’s right to life is an exception to this principle.
Capacity refers to the ability to exercise a given right and is closely associated with age. Capacity is gained and lost on a continuum that begins at conception, maximizes at the age of majority, declines with old age and senility, and ultimately ends at death.
Abortion is justified for two closely interrelated reasons. 1) The unborn child’s inferior right to life and 2) the size and nature of the burdens that an carrying an unborn child places on the mother. If the unborn child’s right to life was more advanced, or if the burdens of carrying an unborn child were minimal (or could be delegated), then abortion would harder to justify. But none of these are the case.
Society at large has acknowledged this situation by its unwillingness to treat abortion anything like to (criminal) murder, as promoted by the pro life community.