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Originally Posted by rwking";p="
Actually, friend, that's exactly where the debate lies. By definition, murder is "the unlawful killing of one human being by another." At what point is an embryo a human being? That's why there is so much controversy. Abortions can happen at any time between about 4 weeks and 6 months, during which the embryo develops significantly. However, there seems to be a disagreement as to when the fetus becomes a "baby" or a "person."
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The status of the human embryo is debated among bioethicists. Some ethicists believe that an embryo does, in fact, possess personhood. Gilbert Meileander, for example, identifies conception as the point at which a new individual human being comes into existence, since "when sperm and ovum join to form the zygote, the individual's genotype is established." However, human embryos have been cloned, in which case no new genotype is established.
Your right of course that this is where everything is focused on whether or not an embryo is a human being or not. Though lets not look at the developing stage, lets look at what it contains at that stage. Does an embryo have a brain, heart, lungs, etc...whether it's being being developed. As long as their is a trace of that, or activity among the embryo can you tell if it's human or not.