It is indeed an echo of the abortion debate, where the issue is so fiercely polarized that pro-choice forces are finding themselves arguing that there's no moral difference between expelling a microscopic clump of cells and killing a viable infant in mid-birth, but that there is a difference between killing the infant during birth and killing it immediately afterward.

In service to their ideology they've entirely sacrificed both reason and humanity. Compared to that, a man who wants to kill his wife for money is easy to sympathize with.