Debates about abortion usually center around when life begins. Some would say life begins at conception, believing that a soul enters the body at that point. Some have claimed “quickening” or, the point when movement begins, is when a fetus should be legally deemed a “person.” Some Rabbinc traditions held that life befins at the first breath.

The theory that has made the most sense to me has been that, since the abscence of an EEG or organized brainwave is considered clinical death, that we might consider the inception of an organized brain activity as the point at which the fetus would be afforded the legal status of personhood.

The article below is written by a neuroscientist who struggles with the question of when human consciousness awakens.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/consciousness_science_and_ethics_abortion_animal_rights_and_vegetative_state_debates_.html?wpisrc=sl_iphone