Time and time again we see people glom onto irrational reasons to consider abortion reasonable. These often involve 3 prongs of arguments, none of which hold water under scrutiny.
The first and frankly stupidest is age and size. To start off there is no viable metric for the beginning of life aside from when a fertilized oocyte becomes a zygote. This is when actual development and growth of an individual human organism starts. Any argument to the contrary is redundant, especially claims like “it’s the size of a grain of rice”. By this logic, as a 6’1 man, I could treat everyone shorter or smaller than me as viable to kill. This logic is also malicious in its intent because it does not argue the life of the fetus but instead that it is okay to kill at that size because it isn’t as developed or as aged as another fetus. This argument, even at its base, is a disgusting metric meant to normalize killing the defenseless.
The second argument, “my body, my choice” is frankly hilarious if it wasn’t used as a legitimate defense to murder. To put it blankly women always vote against bodily autonomy except when they are the ones impacted. On top of this is the notion that simply because another being is physically dependent on you then you have the right to end its life. To completely close the argument of “my body, my choice”, every woman who engages in willing sexual intercourse has made a choice. That choice doesn’t get to be changed because you don’t agree with the outcome of your decisions. This argument, again is not about whether a fetus is alive, but if women are allowed to kill an independent life because it is reliant on them.
The third and final argument is that we should allow abortion because the unwanted child is more likely to grow up in a broken home, be adopted, or in general a strain on societal resources. In this argument the “quality of life” aspect is erroneously utilized to say that a living being should have no say in its existence. Again by this argument we should kill all ugly people, all poor people, and anyone with a lifelong health condition as their “quality of life” is going to be lesser than the average person. Notice how again the argument over whether the fetus is a living being is never mentioned, but instead that we should kill it because they could have an unhappy life.
No where in any of these arguments are a rational defense of the aborted fetus being 1. Not a separate organism from the parent or 2. The fetus actually being a living organism. When considering abortion these are the only metrics that should matter, as they are the only metrics that create a rational, well defined argument over what qualifies an individual being.
Try again, we are genetically hardwired to be conscious from conception, there is no “state of consciousness” that is magically applied. It is a designed state that is achieved.
How is it possible for brain cells to develop if you are not a conscious being?
Well, if you are going to claim every living being with brain cells is conscious...
Congratulations, you just made late term abortions look better than any abortion enthusiast ever did.
But consciousness requires cells developed in a predisposed fashion. Once again the argument is redundant, every human is conscious because they are designed to be so. To state that a being designed to be conscious can be killed because it is not conscious is the same as saying I could kill you after knocking you out. Consciousness is not a determination of life or death.
I am glad to know we are not allowed to criticise jihad anymore, because nobody should take our opinion on having post-mortem reward for blowing yourself up seriously.
Braincells start developing around the same time (a bit earlier) than heart cells, which about 6 weeks. Generally before most women know that they are pregnant. They, and the new nervous system, start firing as soon as they develop. A fetus is profoundly stupid, but not unaware. In fact, babies in utero will often respond to stimulus before they have "quickened" and playing with the baby is an important part of development, with many mothers playing "tag" and interacting with the child instinctively.
Choose another metric.
How on earth can a fertilized egg be conscious of anything?
Does a fertilized human egg grow into a cat? Our genetics determine what we become. Your definition of “conscious” is already designed to take place once the zygote is formed. We don’t have some arbitrary choice in how we are formed, we are created to be conscious being. To state that something designed to be conscious is not conscious is a redundant argument.
No, and that does not matter for your claim that it has 'consciousness', which it most certainly does not possess.
Are you seriously arguing that a one-celled organism without even any theoretical possibility of consciousness, is in fact conscious?
Are you seriously arguing that zygotes don’t develop beyond one cell? We would not develop beyond that state if we were not intended to. To say something that is inherently designed to be conscious is somehow non-conscious is an illogical argument. We develop as we are designed to, which is to be a conscious being.
Once again, our genetics are aware of what we are supposed to become, our development follows that process. We would not develop into humans if that was not the case. To set a subjective standard like consciousness that is universal in humans means that every human is designed to achieve that state.