The Heart of the Abortion Debate?

I am surprised no one has posted about abortion here yet, so I guess I will start, feel free to reply with anything, even if it's not directly related to the things I say :)

The example I gave in class involved a scenario in the distant future, in which there exists a machine, an "advanced incubator" as Steven coined it, which has the ability to fully develop an embryo to an infant state. In this case, an embryo can be extracted from the body with negligible impact upon the mother and embryo. Now, it is my assumption that in this "utopian" future, most people would deem it morally impermissible to kill the embryo after it was harmlessly extracted from the mother, or pursue an alternate plan in which the mother is also harmlessly rid of the embryo, but the embryo dies as a consequence of extraction.

So, it seems to me that what separates this utopian future from the present is that in the future, the embryo can be saved with negligible harm to the mother, so it should be saved. Since saving it doesn't harm anyone in any way, we are not permitted to kill it/let it die, even if pursuing an alternate abortion process, assuming the ideal method is readily available. So, it is my impression that, in the present, letting the embryo die is permissible because it causes harm/requires cost, and in the future, it is not permissible because it does not cause harm/require cost.

Thus, I am wondering if a purely consequentialist (utilitarian) approach might avoid a lot of the complexities with rights and personhood, getting to the heart of the debate more readily.

In the present, many people argue that abortion is permissible, especially in certain circumstances (rape, incest, etc.), because it causes trauma to the mother and infringes upon her rights to her body.

But are discussions on rights and personhood really necessary? What if the embryo can be saved with minimal impact on the mother? What if the mother arbitrarily decided that this still infringed upon her rights, and that the embryo must die? Well, you'll say that our rational society would never believe that, but then where do our "rights" come from and where are they based? Raith made the good point that many rights are based on a spectrum cemented in consequences and net utility. But then that would mean rights come from consequences, and thus a "simple" calculation of utility lies at the heart of the debate, not abstract notions of absolute rights.

Take the good Samaritan example - if I can save someone by simply letting them tap my nose, am I not morally obliged to let them do so? Contrast this with someone needing me to sacrifice my life to save theirs. One might argue these invoke the same concepts of rights, but I think most people would feel there is an intrinsic difference between these two cases in terms of morality. What is the root of this intuition? It seems obvious to me that it's the net consequences and costs in the two scenarios.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I recall that Kantian ethics, which is, in many ways, the foundation of rights-based ethics, describes that rights are absolute and have no regards to consequences. For example, according to Kant, it is never okay to lie or steal, no matter the consequences. The notion of treating "human beings" with respect and as ends is a specific case of this "universality" principle. However, I also seem to recall that the proofs for these maxims actually involved considerations of their ultimate consequences.

Thus, due to all the facts I have been exposed to, it is my impression that the true heart of the matter of abortion is net utility, and not some convoluted, multi-level, and possibly arbitrary logic game of rights. After all, the more specific and complex we make the system of rights, the more they approach rule consequentialism. This is not surprising, as the rights or "rules" themselves are often based on notions of net utility.

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