I'm still curious about how often you think miscarrige is the woman's fault. It's true that a woman can do things to increase or decrease the chances of miscarriage, but I do not think women are often to blame for their miscarriages.

A number of studies have shown that tobacco use is a significant factor in spontaneous abortions among pregnant smokers, and that it contributes to a number of other threats to the health of the fetus.http://en.wikipedia.org/­wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco­_smoking#Spontaneous_abortion among

So basically tobacco use is to pregnancy what alcohol use is to driving. It's not a guaranty of problems but it is something we probably should blame the person for.

As for alcohol... "Fetal alcohol exposure is the leading known cause of mental retardation in the Western world.[6] In the United States the FAS prevalence rate is estimated to be between 0.2 and 2.0 cases per 1,000 live births, comparable to or higher than other developmental disabilities" <link>

You're right that if abortion were illegal, people who had illegal abortions could claim they were miscarriages - but why would they let people who would oppose them getting abortions know about the pregnancy in the first place?

"The people who would oppose them"? I'm assuming that if you make it "illegal", then it would actually be, you know, "illegal". That means the power of the government would be enforcing this.

More than likely the woman's doctor knows she's pregnant. Since the unborn is a "person" he's it's doctor too. Doc's have a legal duty to report when their patient dies, ER doc's already have a duty to report gun shot victims to the police.

A woman who has an illegal abortion is not dangerous to the wider society...

"Not dangerous"? A woman who has an illegal abortion is likely to do it again.

"the needs of society"? So it's a good thing if we let serial killers loose? Is that because we don't value their victims as much as you claim?

"is likely not to believe abortion is murder"? If society has decided that the unborn are really people, her thinking this only makes her insane and *more* dangerous, not less. We don't treat members of the KKK gently if the root of their criminal behavior is them really thinking blacks aren't equal or real people or whatever.

IMHO you need to take a really good look at the world you're trying to build. I don't think it would end up looking like what you're thinking. The Gov doesn't have a magic wand to make people think and behave the way we want them too.

society needs to provide poor women who get pregnant with better choices to reduce the desire to get abortions in the first place

We've done this in the past and it hasn't worked out well. It turns out paying unmarried people with children, is the same thing as paying them not to get married. It's a bad thing when the government comes out against marriage, it leads to all sorts of social problems.