Oddbean new post about | logout
 There is a possibility that humans die by accident, from disease, we don't say that that means we can't objectively call them human or that because of this fact it is OK to kill them. Same with one developing in the womb. Nobody holds anyone responsible for an accident happening to somebody unless it's the result of negligence. I don't see any inconsistency here whatsoever.

By "uninterrupted" I mean deliberately interrupted.

> It doesn't live inside of another organism

This is irrelevant. Living inside another person is part of our natural life cycle. It's part of the nature of the human being, just as a butterfly spends time in a cocoon.

All the other details that you say make a baby human are the same as my examples earlier, it talks, it walks, they aren't the reason we call it a human. A baby on a feeding tube is still a human. If you use these as the criteria then of course it's going to be murky to you. Find the fundamental differentiator, not a list of most-of-the-time criteria with tons of corner cases and caveats and you'll see my point.

> If you don't think a baby's humanity is different than that of an unborn one and you think that that belief is objective, then how is a sperm or an egg not an unborn baby even before they meet?

I've told you already, the criteria that is most objective is, at what point in development does it occur that, if the process is not *deliberately* interrupted, more than likely it will result in a baby. That's the point you can call it a person. This precludes sperm, eggs, even fertilized embryos, most of which go unnoticed.