On balance, abortion is immoral

My Argument will follow this basic outline: Argument #1: The value of human life or consciousness? Argument #2: The immorality of criminalizing abortion Argument #3: Exigent Circumstances beyond the Mother's health Argument #1 l The Value of Human Life or Consciousness? It is often argued by those of the "Pro-life" camp, that because a human fetus (I use the American spelling) is a living organism and has human DNA and thus is a human life. I do not dispute this for a moment, and it would be incorrect to say that a fetus is anything but human. However, I will argue that what we truly value is consciousness, particularly that level of sentience experienced by human beings. Scientists believe they have discovered consciousness arising around the 24th and 28th week. "Consciousness requires a sophisticated network of highly interconnected components, nerve cells. Its physical substrate, the thalamo-cortical complex that provides consciousness with its highly elaborate content, begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week of gestation. "[1] Although the fetus is not self-aware it cannot be stated that they are not awake and have some degree of consciousness, having the capacity to experience pain, etc. It is at this time that I will argue when the baby becomes objectively valuable on the scale of being immoral to kill. For instance, in the example of the person in the coma. Why if consciousness is what is truly valuable do we keep people in a coma alive? If there is no hope of that person being restored to consciousness, we will likely take them off life support as is many times the case? Without consciousness life is merely biology, the continual multiplication of cells and functioning of organs. Consciousness is simply what gives us the quality of personhood. If it was simply life that we valued then this would be impossible to protect, as indeed we kill plenty of our own cells (which are living) each day when we clean ourselves or scratch our nose, etc. I will welcome my rebuttal from my opponent and will then defend this argument further for the sake of brevity. Argument #2 l The Immorality of Criminalizing Abortion This argument is derived from pragmatism and takes into account the reality of the world in which we live. Our society has tried to ban abortion in the past, and banning the practice did more harm than good. A study performed in the 1930s revealed that it was estimated that nearly 15,000 women at that time died from complications arising from an illegal abortion. [2] This number may not truly be representative and could indeed be even more, but it is clear that the prohibition of abortion does not prevent it from happening and only endangers the mother as well. A better course of action would be to legalize the act and regulate it heavily as we do, and ensure that after the fetus has reached consciousness it is protected (except in exigent circumstances). Argument #3 l Exigent Circumstances Beyond the Mother's Health My opponent has only stated the health of the mother as the only cause for justifying abortion, but this fails to take into consideration other circumstances. One example is that of extreme birth defects such as anencephaly where the fetus does not develop a brain beyond the brain stem. In severe cases of this, it is likely that the baby dies almost immediately after being born and cannot be ensured any quality of life or conscious experience. Another circumstance would be rape or incest, that a woman who is raped and impregnated would be forced to keep the child of the rapist is incredibly immoral and reveals the gender issue behind abortion. Conclusion: On these three arguments I make my case that abortion is not immoral for these particular situations. Of course, I am not arguing that abortion at any stage is moral, but I also disagree with the stance of my opponent that it is only justified in the case of the mother’s health is at risk. I apologize I could not write more, but I was limited for time over the weekend. Best Regards, TrueScotsman [1] . http://www.scientificamerican.com...; [2] . http://socialistworker.org...;