> But, it would make sense perhaps, if many of the empathic vegetarians would also be anti-abortion too.

Depends on where your empathy goes. You also have to consider the life of the one carrying the foetus, and the life that a being that is not yet sentient would get if it were to live. I don't see any inconsistency with being vegetarian in that respect.

Refusing to eat mussels but being supportive of abortion would seem inconsistent, though... As well as being fearlessly against abortion while enjoying a piece of a cow one in a while seems very inconsistent, if you set aside religious believes.

Just a point on the logic here - let’s agree that the trade-off is not always (perhaps even infrequently) one life for the other life in any given case of a desired abortion. It’s a spectrum that goes from the mother’s at-risk life at the most grave to convenience of lifestyle / avoidance of responsibility at the most callous. All abortions are not one or the other, but all points on this spectrum are represented. The debate is often framed to highlight one extreme scenario or the other as justifying a specific policy carte blanche. But we do ourselves a disservice as wannabe rational thinkers be ceding either assumption to the passionate advocacies on each side.

Fully agree with you there.

> convenience of lifestyle / avoidance of responsibility at the most callous

That was also what I was thinking of when I wrote taking into consideration the life of the unborn child. Being undesired or a burden isn't really giving someone the best chances of being happy and fulfilled. But then again, we can come up marginal cases.

I basically agree, except for this bit:

"and the life that a being that is not yet sentient would get if it were to live"

I don't know that I think it's not sentient, nor that it is not yet alive. I recognise that might not accord with scientific opinion, but there it is.