That is not a moral argument or a legal one and I'm not sure why consciousness matters? The unborn isnt even close to consciousness until very late term and no "elective" abortions take place that late. If they do, please provide the data.
The unborn suffers nothing, feels nothing, is aware of nothing. There is no pain or awareness in 97.5% of abortions, where a raspberry-sized or smaller unborn is flushed painlessly from the womb. Any later abortions, by law and by procedure, include lethal anesthetic injection.
The woman suffers a great deal...we're talking about a woman that does not want or cannot support a child. Pregnancy can be torture...imagine if you dont want to be pregnant? And you have the stress of sickness, maybe losing your job, having to drop out of higher education?
So you consider much of your life a 'convenience?' Being healthy? Keeping your job and remaining working to support dependents like kids, elderly, disabled? Being able to maintain a home in a safe place? Upholding your obligations and commitments to employer, church, community, society, etc are all 'conveniences?' I'm pretty sure they're not to the individuals involved, including the woman. For me, those things are not 'conveniences,' they are *my* responsibility to fulfill if possible, they are commitments.
... shortened for posting limit of 5000 chars (see original post)
So, maybe I wasn't clear, although I did post it earlier in this very same thread but here is my full view...
I have zero problem with early term abortions whether that is for medical reasons or matters of convenience. The reason I feel this way is because the is very little development to the neurological system prior to 16 weeks and I can honestly view the living organism as living cells, with potential to becoming a child, but not yet within enough development to be considered such. So I'm not going to rebut the first section of your post because I'm not making that argument, and in this area we are in full agreement.
The places where we differ I believe is the definition of convenience. The things I you listed that would be impacted by the birth of a child I do see as conveniences, because you have conflated caring for an infant and hardship with complete inability to perform the items on that list. I acknowledge that with an unexpected birth there is likely to be hardship for many people, but it does not explicitly prevent any of those things you mentioned, it's all just made much more difficult. That's a very close approximation to the definition of convenience I'd wager. Wait, I'll look it up... yup: Oxford Dictionary "the state of being able to proceed with something with little effort or difficulty."
In the third section of your post, I take issue with the statement "no women are electively aborting healthy viable (24 weeks or later) fetuses. It doesnt happen". While I agree that this is uncommon, you have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not this occurs, ever, at all, in a country of 330,000,000. I mean, come on, really? You don't think these things are done illegally all over the place? I would suspect this is quite commonplace.
Regardless, I am arguing the point that after neurological development people espousing the idea or abortion de-humanize aspects of a fetus, to the point where they will argue nonsensical ideas to try to convince people via manipulative means. This is where my problem lies. Your laundry list of "physiological differences in the born and unborn immediately before and after birth" would be easy to assemble, since I can off the top of my head think of tons of differences between pre- and post-birth babies. Are you trying to sway people into believing that a baby just prior to being born is significantly different for what it was as a living entity just hours before? It's still a person. It's the same thing. Hell, I'm physiologically different when I'm sleeping versus when I'm awake, is that any kind of an argument?
Look, women are the ones who take the risk and most of the physical responsibility of carrying a child and birthing a child. They are the ones who should have the say in what they want to do as women, I don't disagree with that at all. I do, however, have the right and a voice when it comes to the types of ideas and arguments that get thrown around in the society in which I live in support of said abortions. I support most cases of abortion without having to swallow this kind of drivel, so don't tout this stuff to try to win your argument.
