tl;dr I see my friends talking to brick walls instead of to each other. As I see it, the fundamental question (which no one is addressing) is:
Is life precipitated by consciousness, or is life fundamentally a bio/psycho/social phenomenon? If the latter, and if consciousness is merely epiphenomenal (an evolutionary accident; advanced pattern-recognition that spontaneously became self-aware), one can reasonably assume that consciousness is NOT achieved at the moment of conception. Consciousness would be realized at some later point when the biology, psychology, and social context are sufficiently complex.
If, however, life is fundamentally a spiritual phenomenon, with consciousness being primary rather than ancillary (call it God, call it Universe, or call it an energetic phenomenon not yet fully documented by modern science), and if consciousness begets life rather than the other way around (as has been the preferred belief for most of recorded history), then there are 4 distinct sub-possibilities: 1) consciousness, like energy, is neither created nor destroyed; rather it morphs continually from one form to another, entertaining itself via some kind of eternal dance across spacetime (insert various other hippie talking points), 2) God (or gods) create consciousness and/or rig our bodies such that we create new consciousnesses via particular energetic processes, such as (ostensibly) conception, or 3) consciousness is projected into/onto a biological substrate by an external collective and/or energetic accumulation and/or deity after the substrate is sufficiently complex. Or 4) it’s a mystery, and there’s really no way to know. My money is on 4, for the record. In option 3, abortion would probably be fair game prior to that moment of instantiation. In option 2, it makes sense to try and figure out what God’s stance is on all this and to just go with that. Christians tend to believe that conception is the crucial moment. In option 1, you’re just part of the dance, so if you choose to abort then so be it. The ancients performed abortions (and infanticide) all the time.
Is this correct? Do your beliefs about abortion mesh with your theory of consciousness as per my imagination? If not, do tell.
Note: The direction of causation is opposite in the bio/psycho/social theory vs. the consciousness-is-primary theory. From perspective 1, consciousness is precipitated by your material substrate and context. If your biology isn’t yet fully formed or has degraded considerably, you aren’t conscious. From perspective 2, your biology is merely the physical analog of your spiritual self. The body produces cells in accordance with a master blueprint that is fundamentally energetic, with genetics being the machine language for transforming energy into biology.