Tolerance Covenant in Culture

OK, I just read a good article on tolerance arising from relativism, and I have an example from my daily life of a conundrum which I think it is hard for a true relativist to reconcile.

I was eating lunch one day with some friends, and we got on the topic of abortion. While I didn't try to impose my beliefs and knowledge on my friends about what I think about the practice of abortion, I did pay attention to all that was said. Mind you, this was prior to the recent presidential election so the discussion was focused primarily on why Obama was the better pick for President of the U.S. over McCain because Obama was, to some of them, more willing to "live and let live" on the topic of abortion. (which is unfortunately NOT true, but that's a topic for another time) At the time I understood their view - even if I disagreed - because this was a popular view, and still is, among many Americans about the current President, but I now find this view to be quite the conundrum...

A few weeks after the discussion about abortion we were once again eating lunch together when one of my friends noticed a woman who was pregnant standing outside smoking a cigarette. Some of my friends were appalled that this woman would smoke while pregnant. They found it to be abusive and ludicrous because everyone knows that smoking can cause birth defects and other health complications for the child once it is born.

Curiously, however, no one brought up the disconnect between the unborn fetus being "abused" through the mother's smoking and the possibility that the woman could go abort the fetus with no questions asked. Unfortunately I didn't have the topic thought out logically enough to confront them on this major logical disconnect at the time (or so I thought - although I'm sure I could have made an attempt at it that would have been good enough), but now that I've thought about it some more this is an utterly unreasonable stance to take on both issues. The conflict I have is that in both cases harm is being caused to a fetus. In the first case, allowing a woman to choose whether or not to abort a fetus without regard for the circumstances of the decision - which is Obama's stance on this issue, is completely acceptable. In the second case, in which smoking while pregnant has the high likelihood of causing birth defects, the behavior by the mother is abhorrent. So in the first case the mother is causing the end to a fetus' imminent life outside of the womb, and in the second case the mother is potentially causing irreparable harm to the fetus after it comes out of the womb.

Now which is worse for the fetus: ending its possibility of life at all, or just impacting its quality of its future life? And lest anyone think that I am rigid and uncaring for the mother in either case, please keep in mind that I am NOT arguing about whether or not abortion or smoking while pregnant should be legal. Re-read the first sentence of this post and you will see that the argument is about a worldview, not just some legalistic rabbit trail about fetuses.