Originally posted by philosophizer
I'll have to partially agree here. Appearance isn't all that matters. In fact you are correct that the appearance does gradually become more "human" as it developes. A cluster of several cells when the egg first starts to multiply does not yet "look" human.
But that, as you said, is not the issue. The issue is that it is human all along.
There are many lines we draw just so we can ascribe terms and compartments to help us understand how things work. We have terms like zygote, embryo, and fetus to describe different stages of prenatal development. We have terms like newborn, toddler, teenager, and adult to describe different stages of life. The important thing to remember is that when it all comes right down to it, they are all arbitrary.
When we're talking about prenatal life and whether or not it's human, or whether or not abortion is murder, there's always some arbitrary dividing line that is asserted. "After THIS many days or THIS physical development, it becomes a person!" No. It's different in every case. It's all arbitrary.
So how do we decide on any kind of moral judgement upon an arbitrary delineator? We can't! Morality is absolute. We must have an absolute delineator.
Throughout the whole developmental process, there is only one instant that could carry such absoluteness: when the gametes meet and the DNA from two different people is shuffled into a new and unique combination to begin development. Any other point is arbitrary.
