I have yet to see the arguments of the utilitarian ethicist Peter Singer used to any great extent in this forum. Therefore, I will endeavor to do so myself. Singer has argued that the same protection and value cannot be given to a fetal (or indeed, an infant) life as is given to a human life because the fetus lacks personhood, (which he has defined as an awareness of one’s existence). In Practical Ethics, he argues, “We have already seen that the strength of a conservative position lies in the difficulty liberals have in pointing to a morally significant line of demarcation between an embryo and a newborn baby. The standard liberal position needs to be able to some such line, because liberals usually hold that it is permissible to kill an embryo or fetus but not a baby. I have argued that the life of a fetus (and even more plainly, of an embryo) is of no greater value than the life of a nonhuman animal at a similar level of rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel, etc., and that since no fetus is person no fetus has the same claim to life as a person. Now it must be admitted that these arguments apply to the newborn baby as much as to the fetus. A week-old baby is not a rational and self-conscious being, and there are many nonhuman animals whose rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel, and so on, exceeds that of a human baby a week or a month old. If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value to it than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to the nonhuman animal. Thus while my position on the status of fetal life may be acceptable to many, the implications of this position for the status of newborn life are at odds with the virtually unchallenged assumption that the life of a newborn baby is as sacrosanct as that of an adult.” What are your thoughts on his position?

__________________
-A perfect example of why I can't find intelligent conversation

If abortion was murder, then a miscarriage would be involuntary manslaughter.