So much about Christianity is incoherent, and the anti-abortion stances of many Christians is probably at the top of the list.
Ask yourself what do Christians believe about birth, life, and death. They claim to believe that fetuses are "ensouled" at some stage in their development. I have to say "at some stage" because various Christian groups are all over the place as to when this happens. (The people who say that this happens at conception are undermining their own point. Estimates are all over the place by a typical one is "The proportion of fertilized eggs that produce a live full-term baby (in the absence of contraceptive measures) is not known precisely, but is probably only 40%." So, if that is the case, then over half of the souls implanted end up being recycled . . . normally! I am sure God wouldn't make such an inefficient system. Surely ensoulment occurs at a later, less precarious, stage.)
So, we are ensouled, we live and hopefully find Jesus, and then we die, at which point our soul leaves our body and for our body, well, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, discarded like so much trash. Our soul is what goes to Heaven.
So, if one accepts this Christian worldview, what happens during an abortion? If it happens before ensoulment (the old folks called this quickening), what is lost is a small amount of tissue. No harm no foul happens to the soul. If the fetus is ensouled, when the abortion occurs, what happens to the soul? Does the soul die? Apparently souls are immortal, so the soul doesn't die, just the body being grown for it wasn't able to full receive the download, so the soul has to go back into storage. (For science fiction fans, this is like stories in which one's personality can be downloaded into a computer, and then a clone grown and the personality downloaded into it, and voilà, immortality ensues.)
So, that "aborted soul" goes back into storage (or the loving arms of God, whichever is your preference), and gets its chance another time with another mother.
So, where is the harm?
Harm would occur is the soul was forced into a body distorted by disease and disablements. You can argue all you want about all the lessons to be learned by the disabled (think Steven Hawking) but if you were to give them the options of their malformed body and a sound and whole one, which do you think they would choose? How about if the family (were there one) was unable to care for the child, to feed and clothe it and provide medical care, and love? No, these zealots claim that that soul has to go into that body, even if the body is ectopic, that is dead already, though it is still in the mother.
If these Christians were at all the people of the faith they claim, they would see that abortions are in no way damaging to the souls they claim are the real us.
So, why are they so anti-abortion? It all comes down to power. When people who have no observable power, get an opportunity to wield some, they tend to go whole hog and not think about what they are doing. So, "forgive them, they know not what they do" is right on point. They are viciously against abortions, even though their faith says there is nothing wrong with them.
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