If you consider yourself a staunch "pro-lifer" ... 1) You've never been through what we just went through, and 2) You should take a long, hard look in the mirror and reevaluate your reasons for supporting such a cold, barbaric, ignorant point of view.
It's not that black & white, and it's never going to be.
1) My Pro-Life wife and I have been through a miscarriage, though a D & C was not needed. It was devastating. Had one been necessary we would not have hesitated to have it done, for the grossly obvious reasons.
2) First, I do not know of any Pro-Lifer who would want to forbid abortion when a mother's life was in danger.
Second, an unborn baby is a unique, living human being in the beginning stages of a continuous progression from fertilization the death in old age. The DNA of the baby is specifically human and unique from that of the mother, and is controlling the growth and development of that living baby. Pro-Abortionists want to believe Pro-Lifers are unthinking, but in the real world many have given more thought to it than have Pro-Abortion people who dodge the reality of what abortion kills.