Abortion is wrong

It appears that yes, we HAVE reached the same conclusion. I think it's safe to sum up the question, at this point, with just two sentences: 1. It would be wrong to abort a fetus IF the fetus should be considered, either legally or morally, as a "person. " and 2. The primary defining characteristic of a "person" is consciousness; we may argue other requirements for personhood in addition to "consciousness," but it is at least agreed that if a given entity does not possess "consciousness," (ignoring, for the moment, temporary loss of consciousness as in sleep), then that entity cannot be considered a "person. " So it all comes down to a simple question - is there any reason that we should consider a fetus to be "conscious? " My opponent clearly thinks so, but I would have to say that he's given little reason for this - he has offered only the assertion, repeated several times that this is so. He has said that the mind and brain are separate things, and that the mind does not depend on the brain - but has given no evidence that this is so. He (correctly, in my opinion) notes that there is no "flash of light," no clear, defining moment at birth or otherwise, when we can clearly say that consciousness arrives or "is installed. " We seem to agree that, in fact, no one can point to a particular moment in time when it IS clear that consciousness somehow "arrives. " If it DOES happen prior to the point when abortion can be restricted (and currently, this would mean in the first trimester of pregnancy), then despite its legality abortion would clearly be morally objectionable. But is there, in fact, any reason for believing in even the POSSIBILITY of fetal consciousness in this period? I would submit that there is none. The notion that the mind exists apart from the brain is certainly an old one, a closely coupled to the idea of a "soul" - but do we actually have a REASON, one which would be persuasive to all regardless of religious orientation, to believe that this is the case? I know of no such reason or evidence, and in fact the evidence that we DO have would appear to argue quite the contrary. If the mind is not so strongly dependent on the brain, then why does damage to certain areas of the brain clearly and instantly eliminate any detectable "mind" - even in those cases where enough of the "automatic" functions of the brain remain to sustain the rest of the body in vegetative life? We know of no case - not one - in which cessation of the brain activity which has been linked to "consciousness" has not meant exactly that. "Brain death," as indicated by just such loss of brain function, is just that. We legally and morally consider the brain-dead person to BE dead, and there have been no documented examples where a person recovered from this state. The "out of body" or "near-death" experiences cited by my opponent are not acceptable evidence to the contrary. First, we are in those cases talking about individual who already (and quite recently) demonstrated the full capacity for consciousness; there is no question that their brains are functioning and capable of supporting conscious thought. Further, the supposed "out of body" aspects of these situations have never been documented; there is, as far as I have been able to determine, not a SINGLE documented case in which a person reported something while supposedly "out of body" that could not have been known to them through other means. The "tennis shoe on the hospital roof" example my opponent cited would certainly be such an example, IF it can be adequately documented. (If it can be, I'm not the only one who would find this interesting; the James Randi Educational Foundation, or JREF - www. randi. org - has a long standing offer of $1 million to anyone who can show evidence of just this sort of "paranormal" phenomenon. ) Every shred of objective evidence we have today suggests very strongly that consciousness IS a function of the brain, that a certain level of brain complexity is required to support it, and that there are detectable signs (brain waves, etc. ) which can reliably indicate whether or not there is at least the potential for consciousness to exist. And, unfortunately for my opponent's argument, NONE of these signs are present in the fetus. This even agrees with personal experience, if one stops to consider it. What is "consciousness," if not the continued thought, memories, and sense of self on the part of the individual? I cannot truly "prove" ANYONE else to be conscious - for all I know the rest of you could all be clever automatons! - but I KNOW myself to be conscious because I directly experience this state. But having said that, I have to acknowledge that my consciousness has not, to my knowledge, always existed. There is a point in the past beyond which I have no memories whatsoever, and so it is meaningless from my perspective to speak of a "consciousness" that is "me" existing beyond a certain point in the past. And clearly no one has ever reported from their own experience "consciousness" on their part as a fetus. We don't generally remember our own birth, either, but I am not going to try to go so far as to argue for a complete lack of consciousness in the newborn infant - just that it is clear that at SOME point in the past, and almost certainly long after my own conception, "my" consciousness arrived at least to the point of a dim awareness. If anything, our mutual experiences would suggest that consciousness does NOT, in fact, simply "arrive" - that you are not conscious at one momment, and fully conscious the next. It seems far more likely that consciousness, like the structure of the body or brain itself, is something which develops at a relatively slow pace. Just as there is no "flash of light" at the moment of birth, there is none at conception or at any other particular point in either fetal or post-partum development. There is no point at which we would suddenly be able to say "ah, NOW consciousness has arrived! " In any event, there is certainly no reason whatsoever to believe, or even to consider the possibility, that the fetus is "conscious" to a degree even remotely comparable to a person. The only justification for assuming "consciousness" (or - since we may as well use the word here - a "soul") at conception would be certain religious beliefs. But in this case, my earlier comments regarding miscarriages are, unfortunately, quite relevant. If "souls" arrive at conception, then whoever set this system up is doing so with full knowledge that up to half of those souls will soon be leaving their new bodies. There seems to be no escaping this conclusion. The other objection my opponent raises to linking consciousness to brain function is that if this is the case, then a sufficiently complex computer might become conscious. Actually, there is no reason for thinking that could not be so; clearly, we have not had to deal with conscious artificial intelligences to date, but that is no reason to think it impossible. In fact, this examples gets to the very heart of the basic question of consciousness itself, and has been a matter of considerable interest to the AI community.