Only if there are not stronger arguments disallowing abortion in those very limited circumstances.

Now, whatever consciousness is – and I think a very solid case can be made that awareness is a necessary condition for personhood …

This is a rather tendentious view. For instance, are we really conscious at all times during sleep? If not, does that mean we’re not persons at those particular times at which we’re unconscious? If so, what gives us the right not to be “aborted” at those times? Potential personhood? But that, as you pointed out, is a trait that the fetus already has.

I have some squabbles with what you’ve said, but for the most part, the examples you give make for a strong argument allowing abortion in very limited circumstances.

Or, phrased more neutrally, “there are at least some circumstances where abortion should be allowed”. Note that Jewish law has recognized this for a long time now.

Further note that, in practice, virtually all late-term abortions fall into this category. In reality, hardly anyone remains pregnant past six months and then, willy-nilly, decides to have an abortion. I won’t say it never happens, but it is, er, rather far from the norm.

In other words, what restrictions do you think the courts should place on abortion so as to close that gap?

Well, I don’t think that the law can take souls into account. (If you think so… provide a legal definition of ‘soul’.) I think laws that are going to apply to everybody need to have a solid secular reason behind them – an appeal to “natural law”, to speak in Catholic terms. (Religious groups are free to make rules for their adherents that don’t impact the rights of others, of course.)

Now, whatever consciousness is – and I think a very solid case can be made that awareness is a necessary condition for personhood – it demonstrably depends on the brain. The brain takes a long time to develop – the parts of the brain that process pain, for example, don’t really connect up to the rest of the brain until after the 20th week.

Before there’s a full, interconnected brain, I don’t see any kind of natural-law argument that you have a person as opposed to tissue in the process of developing into a person. I can’t see how abortion is ending an actual, as opposed to potential, person’s life.

Later on, it’s a lot more problematic – but by that point, abortions are only really carried out for medical reasons, which we’ve already established exist and are legally relevant.

But you can decide when heroism is involved. Though, like I said, that’s a much harder line to draw. Soldiers are not punished for not being heroes, they are punished for, e.g. running in the face of the enemy.

As an aside, WWII was fought with a conscript army as were all of Napoleon’s wars. (Napoleon went far in inventing the idea.) Napoleon didn’t fall to his army. We’re still around. (Switching to an all volunteer military didn’t save the state but did give us a much better military if a much smaller one.) I love Heilein as a storyteller but I’m not too big on his philosophical musings, libertarian that he was. He was better than Ayn Rand, there is that.

All that said, it is a rare condition, rarer than those who would like to keep open a very wide door for abortion would like to admit. But it is not an false or impossible one.

Are there cases where it is known the mother will die and the baby will live, if the baby is not killed?

Raped 9-year-olds come to mind:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1883598,00.html

The article understates the case a bit. Labor was far from the only danger the girl faced. Simply carrying a child at that age is dangerous. Carrying twins is dangerous for fully-grown women.

Then there are cases like eclampsia or severe pulmonary hypertension:
http://ncronline.org/news/justice/nun-excommunicated-allowing-abortion

We’re getting better at being able to keep both mother and baby alive long enough to allow the baby to be delivered prematurely and survive. But when eclampsia occurs with other conditions at the same time…

That’s a much harder line to draw, but it must be seen in terms of, “Can we save both lives?”, not in terms of “Can we avoid carrying a burden?”.

True, but as EM said above, “when there is a genuine conflict between them, government shouldn’t pick winners and losers.”

Sometimes the probabilities are wrong and both survive. Sometimes the baby is the miracle.

Absolutely. My wife is such a case, and her mother is one of the people I admire most on this Earth. But you don’t get to – indeed, can’t – force heroism.

There are case that go the other way, too… where one or both are lost. They really exist, and our legal frameworks have to deal with that reality, too.

Kudos to Michael PS. He puts his finger on the crux of the problem with, “Don’t force your morality on me,” as a universal solvent. It bothered me for a long time before I realized that viewpoint only leads to anarchy, the real deadly kind not the kind with a brand that plays loud music.