Price or value?

A British churchman stated the opinion that pregnancy termination cheapens human life. I think he's completely right. If a child can be cut off from the living because the natural parents (or one of them) don't want that child to be born, the idea is that people are only allowed to live if someone else has a use for them. That idea can actually be a threat to everyone. If you believe that life is sacrosanct, then you would not assume the right to terminate the life of the unborn, or anyone else either. To accept the idea that it's okay to kill the unborn is to say that a life can only continue with the approval of others. From that point on it is value judgement who lives and who does not. Think about it. If you claim the right to end a life at all, then rather than seeing life as sacred in principle, you're imposing a valuation on it. Some can live, some cannot, depending on the approval of others. And that view of life can carry over into a loss of respect for human life generally.
Some years ago it made the national news when a crowd of street gang hoods bashed up a female jogger and nearly killed her. One of the gang, under arrest, said: "So what? She weren't nothing." He saw no value in that woman, so he had no remorse for attacking her. That is the bad attitude, whoever the woman was. In fact,she was a professional with skills and eductation, but she didn't matter to him. And the point is NOT that she mattered more for being a skilled professional, but that she is human and should not be treated that way. You could safely bet your life that gangster would care if someone he cared about was attacked. Whoever he values or cares about should be protected. And that is the problem. That is a classic example. He could risk killing someone he saw as "nothin'", while caring about his own. Life only mattered in some cases, not all. That attitude is reflected in saying that a child can be snuffed out because others do not accept their right to life.
I do know that pregnancy can cause shocking distress to the mother. The woman I love most in the world suffered through pregnancy, physically from sickness and emotionally from depression. And that is even in an intact marriage when the children were loved and wanted. It must be far worse when the pregnancy is not wanted. Right. So there are reasons why a woman could wish that it would end. I respect peoples' right to their feelings. But it is still true to say, sometimes a principle has to be suffered for. I could claim that I've done that myself. And the truth is not just what suits us anyway. So there we have it. If life is not inviolable, then there will be times when it will be taken by those who do not see the wrong in doing so. Killing the unborn because it suits others to do so is saying that life can be ended for the sake of others. If you go down that road, and it becomes the general attitude of a society, then the day could come when someone decides to kill you because they do not accept your absolute right to live. Talking of gang culture, one gang had as its condition of membership: 'Take a life, make a life.' To be in the gang the member had to kill someone and get a girl pregnant. The attitude is that you can put someone else out of the world and replace them with someone of your own 'making', in a sense. A world where too much of that happened would be a nightmare of murder and carnage. That extreme example is the same in principle as saying that some children may be born and others not.
There is the case of self-defence. But killing in self-defence is a desperate last resort, not a calculated decision to attack and slay someone else. Also in that situation the person who needs to be defended against is the cause of the problem for attacking in the first place. It is not the same as ending the life of someone helpless.
There is the case of euthenasia. I could understand why a person may wish to die if they are terminally ill and in pain and distress. If that is their decision I can't argue. The point there is, they are not imposing on anyone else. What they want to do applies to them only.
Who presumes the right to take away the life of anyone else? And if you claim that right, might someone claim it against you?
A human being has an identity right from conception. From that point on their gender is decided, as is their physical appearance and the inborn parts of their character. It is too self-serving to say they are not human because they have not been born. Life has started, and a lack of concern for its right to continue can carry over into a lack of respect for life of anyone at any time or place.
I respect the rights of others to their views. But that is how it seems, inescapeably, to me.