Sorry, but there's a lot here which is straight-up false.
1) You said "At week 12 the baby is almost completely developed, although life outside the womb is highly unlikely". This is false. At week
twelve, the foetus is about three inches long, probably less. It's skeletal structure is more like rubber than bone, it's skin is mostly transparent. It doesn't have a functioning liver, pancreas, or even external gentalia (yet - assuming it will become a boy!). It doesn't have eyelashes, fingernails, or a functional nervous system. And since the earliest recorded survivor of premature birth I can find was born almost 22 weeks into pregnancy, life outside the womb at 12 weeks is entirely impossible, given current medicine.
2) You said "The baby can feel pain at week 12". This is false. There have been a lot of pseudoscientific reports that claim otherwise, but the evidence-based science is still there: there is no evidence of foetal pain before the
third trimester. Most of the pseudoscience uses a drastically altered definition of 'pain' in order to try and warp perceptions; such as reflex reactions. However, the hard fact is that the foetal brain does not even lay down the chemical pathways necessary to interpret sensory data until week 20-24; and it is through those pathways that the nervous system signals are interpreted as 'pain'. Without that, there is just a bunch of electrochemical impulses in a partially formed set of nerves with no-where to go.
3) Finally, you misunderstand the debate, which is quite common amongst pro-lifers I've come across. No-one is denying that the newly fertilised egg is alive. However, what I am challenging is that the newly fertilised egg, on day 0, is an individual organism in it's own right. You body is composed of billions of individual alive cells, growing and multiplying, but you do not consider them to be human beings. The abortion debate is never about "when does life begin", it (or at least, this part of it) is about "when is a developing foetus considered as an individual, rather than as a collection of living human cells?". As to that, I would use viability as my line in the sand. Viability is when a foetus is capable of independent existence, which is essential for being a biologically
individual organism. It's what distinguish human cells from human organisms; they can survive on their own (biologically speaking). Viability happens - just like awareness - at the 20-24 week area of development. Not too surprising, since the brain is responsible for controlling chemical changes in the body which keep us alive (homeostasis) so before the brain is developed enough, the woman's body has to help out with the job instead.
EDIT: Incidentally, it's nice to read your responses too. It's good to see someone who is more interested in discussing ideas than stirring up emotional responses. I look forwards to reading your blog post.
