While I would still strongly disagree with "pro-life" people, it would be with a bit more sympathy..

...if there were any consistency in their so-called "pro-life" position.

With rare exceptions, however, most of the same people who like to claim a fetus or an embryo is "sacred", are:

* Pro-death penalty
* Just loves 'em some wildly unregulated firearms. (Many clearly fantasize about the day they finally get to shoot an intruder. Yee hah!)
* Are very casual about "collateral damage" when eager to carpet bomb a perceived enemy.
* Don't care much when cops kill people, especially white cops killing black people (a black cop killing a white person -- that might get them riled up).
* Are against free universal healthcare.
* Don't want to pay a dime in taxes for the well-being of a baby after it's born - you're on your own, kid!
* In the age of COVID are vehemently anti-vax and even anti-mask, as if even a piece of cloth on your face is way too much of a burden for protecting other people's lives.

Find me that rare pro-life person who is against the death penalty, pro gun control, pacifist, pro police reform, pro universal healthcare, is willing to use public funds to make life for a child better after being born, gets vaxxed, and will wear a mask... I'll still disagree with them, but, as I said, with a bit more sympathy for their point of view.

Why am I pro-choice? It's not that I'm an absolutist about "a woman's right to choose", which is the formulaic response for a lot of people here on DU.

Like all rights, no right is absolute when it bumps up against other rights. If (and only if) a freshly-fertilized human egg cell had the same right to live that a post-natal person has, it would not be a slam-dunk that "a woman's right to choose" always exceeds an embryo's or a fetus's supposed right to live.

I'm pro-choice because I don't believe a fertilized human egg cell should be granted full equivalency to a born human being. I believe it has a developing, growing value as birth approaches and viability outside the womb increases.

If my only criteria for my pro-choice position were "a woman's right to choose", I couldn't be self-consistent and support, as I do, vaccination mandates. I clearly think there's a point where a person's choices, be they female or male, about what they do with their own bodies, run up against countervailing public health concerns.