Unfortunately, the pro-choice side never goes further than this. They never seem to challenge the notion that fetuses are alive.

Because that's not the right question either. The right question is "Do we want to live in a place where it is not a crime to abort a fetus?" That's the question. It's entirely subjective. Some people are ok living in a place where it is not a crime to abort a fetus, and some people don't want to live in a place where it is not a crime to abort a fetus. Whether the fetus is "alive" or "human" or whatever is wholly beside the point.

A line attributed, probably apocryphally, to Golda Meir says to Israel's neighbors something like "We can forgive you for killing our sons, but we cannot forgive you for making us kill yours." The essence of the statement is "We don't want to be people who kill others' children." Well, some people don't want to be people who condone abortion, whether or not it is, by some necessarily arbitrary definition, the same thing as "killing" children. It is what it is, and we are comfortable being part of a society that condones it, or we aren't.

The chorus of lawyers who have always thought Roe was wrongly reasoned included people who would vote to establish its holding as law. I count myself in that number. The holding is fine with me, because I want to live in a society that does not criminalize abortion. While I imagine the six justices who voted to uphold the Mississippi law are personally anti-abortion, it's easy to find lawyers who think Roe's rule should be law, but that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled. And then legislated. Those people provide real intellectual cover for the Court's decision in Dobbs.

The question of whether a fetus is "alive" is just a makeweight. The real issue is our national self-esteem, something that really does seem to belong in the realm of politics.