Again, it's an individual decision, and should be kept that way. If, however, the anti-abortion crowd really wants to see a reduction in the number of abortions, then they should support proper sex education in public schools, not unscientific, non-psychologically sound abstinence education.

Rant over.

Doesn't this assume that every abortion = one less baby? That is not necessarily true. Take a hypothetical example – a woman gets pregnant while 20 years old. In one universe she has an abortion. Then when 30 years old, decides she wants a kid, so she has a baby. In another universe, she doesn't have an abortion, and has a baby while 20 years old. Thus despite her having an abortion, there was no selection against her genes because she passed on her genes in the same amount in both cases despite having an abortion in one case.

The term “abortion” includes two qualitatively different procedures: one is the a form of post-conception birth control that seeks to prevent the emergence of a human person, the other is a pre-birth infanticide that seeks to terminate a living human person.

Conception largely is an individual decision. So is infanticide. But the individual most affected is different.

Are you referring to dilation-and-excavation (DNX), the procedure termed “partial birth abortion” for political purposes? (Which, incidentally, is one of the safest procedures in the second term of pregnancy. Women in the second term of pregnancy are otherwise left with options that carry a lot more risk.) Granted, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with a friend or relative's decision to abort a fetus at six or seven months, but I would never suggest that my personal uncertainty means that women's bodies should be legislated.

In any case, the question of when “life” begins should be left to scientists and medical doctors, not to religious leaders and politicians.

I am referring to any abortion procedure that executes after the fetus achieves personhood, which has traditionalyl been placed at the quickening (fetal agency) but probably should be placed no earlier than the emergence of working memory (not sure how to test that, though Carl Sagan has proposed a specific method [1]).

“Granted, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with a friend or relative's decision to abort a fetus at six or seven months, but I would never suggest that my personal uncertainty means that women's bodies should be legislated.

In any case, the question of when “life” begins should be left to scientists and medical doctors, not to religious leaders and politicians.”

Why, if the deepest purpose of the state is to prevent murder?

[1] http://exmormon.org/boards/honestboard/messages/5266.html

I suppose the question is – Does abortion count as evolution, in a broad sense in some way?

Evolution is change in frequencies of some variation over time, so abortion is clearly a mechanism that enables evolution, in the same way that starvation, plague, famine, war, increased sex drive, etc, are.