Much of the debate over abortion focuses on the issue of rights—specifically, whether a woman’s right to an abortion outweighs a fetus’s right to life. The two factions involved in this controversy are poles apart in their views on abortion: whereas the pro-choice movement contends that a woman’s right to abortion is absolute, the pro-life movement asserts that a fetus’s right to life is indisputable. Both sides rely on legal, scientific, and human rights arguments to support their arguments.

Behind this debate is the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion. Roe was based in part on the Fourteenth Amendment’s right to privacy, which the Court ruled was “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” According to the ruling, a...