Evidence for God from Science

So I've heard from several places that the underlying issue with abortion is a dispute over what consititutes "a person" -- being human versus being conscious, if I'm not mistaken. Not 100% on that, so correct me if you think otherwise, but assuming that's true I'm interested in reading whatever you think is the best argument for your definition of personhood. This topic is pretty established territory, so I'd be pretty happy with links redirecting me to whereever.

Of special note, I'm curious whether you think it possible to convince someone of your view (on rational grounds**) without convincing them of your metaphysical worldview (i.e. Materialist vs Christian). I've seen articles arguing that you don't have to believe in the existence of a soul to believe that personhood ought to be grounded in nature (being human) rather than consciousness, but I can't say I've seen a compelling reason to hold non-sentient human life as valuable without assuming the existence of something immaterial to give it value. Nor a good reason to deny such value in the opposite, though I've seen far less starting from "even supposing a soul *does* exist...," so feel free to link me that.

**In the interest of full disclosure, I am of the opinion that abortion is wrong, but that convincing people of this can only be done by emotional appeal, like how one feels when confronted with seeing (or worse, experiencing for themselves) an actual abortion. It seems predicated on the idea that human life is sacred, and "sacred" doesn't mean anything to the irreligious.

Abortion is wrong because it terminates a life, period.
And as to what constituents life, NASA and science have already established that 100%:
When NASA looks for evidence of life on another planet, even proof of a single celled organism is proof of life.
https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpa ... l-14023083

Trees in a forest, fish in a river, horseflies on a farm, lemurs in the jungle, reeds in a pond, worms in the soil — all these plants and animals are made of the building blocks we call cells. Like these examples, many living things consist of vast numbers of cells working in concert with one another. Other forms of life, however, are made of only a single cell, such as the many species of bacteria and protozoa. Cells, whether living on their own or as part of a multicellular organism, are usually too small to be seen without a light microscope.

I assume you're exploring the issue, and unsure either way so trying to understand the arguments.

The issue is that an innocent "human life" is snuffed out, often in the most appauling manner, and that is wrong. That's not exaggeration in any sense, not a religious statement (unless as you point out it is religious to consider human life sacred - some Atheists argue one doesn't need to be religious here though). Rather, it is just a biological truth that a human being dies each and every time in an abortion.

In response to those who wish to introduce a personhood distinction (which I view as a red herring), they have their work cut out for them in defining exactly what it is that magically gives someone "personhood". There are four known areas we can define: Size, Level of development, Environment and degree of Dependency. What is it that upgrades a "human life" from a status of "non-person" to "person" that matters so much? Take care not to define any born human, at any point in their born life, as something less than a person when consistently applying the same standard.

On the issue of "personhood", here is one simple but illuminating question: Were you once in your mother's womb as a fetus?

What is indeed strange, is how, in the U.S., society and the laws asserts differences in the point at which it is deemed morally wrong to take the life of an unborn baby. If something pivotally important isn't inherent in an unborn child, why should it be perfectly legal to take that life before a certain stage, but is considered murder afterward? As terrible as it is, the states with a greater consistency of how they look at the matter are actually those states without a term limit. Ah, but then the question becomes, why can you kill a baby minutes before birth, yet it is considered murder anytime after birth? As for that matter, why can you own a slaughterhouse for beef cattle, and be considered (by most) as a legitimate businessperson, but if you kill people you might get life or execution?

I think, as it relates to human babies, it bothers most people to actually see what it being killed - which is why abortion activists despise mandatory ultrasounds.