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Comment by Veen | Hacker News Reader

I agree with your position, but it is no less polemical and ideological than the comment you are responding to.

> 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.

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> but it is no less polemical and ideological than the comment you are responding to.

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.

Loads of people disagree with you and believe it is murder and can quote science to back up their argument.

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"

> Loads of people [...]

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.

Many (including myself) consider abortion to be murder even before fetal viability.

> 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).

> A human embryo is not a child - the definition of that is also pretty much settled, I'd say.

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."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/child

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