Among the constants in human history is this: When people want to justify killing, enslaving, or otherwise abusing a class of their fellow human beings, they first dehumanize them. I suspect that the dehumanization of the victims is typically meant not only to persuade others to go along or look the other way; it is also to convince the dehumanizers themselves.
As a matter of scientifically demonstrable fact, human embryos, no less than human fetuses, infants, toddlers, children, adolescents, and adults, are human beings — living members of the species Homo sapiens. Those words — “embryo,” “infant,” “adolescent,” and so forth — do not name different kinds of entities. They name the same kind of entity (a living member of the human species, a human being, like you or me) at different stages of development.
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