"Embryo selection"—is that a euphemism for "murdering any unborn child that doesn't have all the "right" genes? Because if so I think your definition of "people's lives" must be very different from mine.
From Wikipedia: "A child (plural children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty [...]"
You are also conflating the abortion of an embryo with murder; only human persons can be murdered, embryos are not persons, therefore no murder.
I sincerely ask you to cut down the polemics here on HN. It does not lead to fruitful (no pun intended) discussions.
> an embryo is not a child and you cannot murder an embryo
It is not obviously and axiomatically true that embryos are not human (I'm assuming the previous comment meant human and not child). Many people think that they are, which is the source of the disagreement. It probably is fruitless to have this conversation on HN, but you shouldn't just assert the opposing position as if it were settled when it is anything but.
I beg to differ. I don't think that using dictionary definitions to make ones arguments can be counted as polemic (as in; to use contentious rhetoric). I might be wrong though.
> I'm assuming the previous comment meant human and not child
No, I actually meant 'child'. An human embryo is - obviously - human. No discussion about that. A human embryo is not a child - the definition of that is also pretty much settled, I'd say. (At least from a scientific point of view.)
But maybe I didn't clearly state my case, thus the misunderstanding.
The point I'm making is as follows. Embryos are not children and thus they are not persons. Just as I cannot murder my toe (it might be human, but it's not a person) I cannot murder an embryo.
You also don't have any definition with a clear line when this switch from non human to human happens.
It almost always boils down to "when it's convenient for me"
Quotation needed. Outside of religious circles there's very little debate about this. Scientific consensus is that fetal viability is considered to begin at 23 or 24 weeks gestational age. That's long after the embryo stage.
Just to make communication easier; are you aware that there's a difference between embryo and fetus?
> You also don't have any definition with a clear line when this switch from non human to human happens.
I never proposed that a embryo is not human. But we can talk about the line dividing persons from non-persons, if you like.
> Outside of religious circles there's very little debate about this
Do you live in the US or Canada? Almost every other country, including almost all of highly secular Western Europe, bans abortion before at no later than 17 weeks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law).
To suggest there is only one definition of "child" is even more incorrect than suggesting that it can't refer to an unborn person:
Definition of child
…
3 a : an unborn or recently born person
"… Meghan Markle, married Prince Harry, now pregnant with child."
The importance of the topic doesn't make it impossible to be polemic. I can talk about a very serious topic and be polemic and I can also talk about a trivial matter and not be polemic. The question of polemic is decided by contentious rhetoric.
Equating embryos with children and abortion with murder is polemic.
I don't think it is polemic to disagree on this point, but it rationally follows that if embryos are unique life forms, which are also human, then aborting them is murder.
Personally, I don't agree with that line of reasoning either, but the argument isn't in itself polemic.
Edit: I suppose I should add that I am not treating "human" as a collective noun, the way we might talk about bread or water. "A human" is not merely a little toe, for example.
> The question is not are embryos human, the question is whether they are independent human life with their own rights.
I think we are pretty much in agreement what the contention is about.
> [..] the argument isn't in itself polemic.
The argument itself is not polemic. No argument in itself is polemic. Polemic is defined in the language used. I'm objecting the language in which the argument is phrased;
To quote the post I originally answered to:
> "Embryo selection"—is that a euphemism for "murdering any unborn child [...]
The phrasing is polemic for reasons I pointed out before.