That would be very flawed logic. By that logic, I don’t remember anything until I was five years old. If you had snuffed me out earlier, I wouldn’t have known or cared.
The reality is that just as there is a continuum of me going forward, there is a continuum of me from my past. The last time I wasn’t me was before I was conceived. I’ve been me ever since.
There is a continuum, nonetheless segmented by discrete phases of development. At some point, you had a heartbeat and brainwaves. At some point, you were born. Took a breath. Started walking, talking. Developed the ability for abstact thinking.
Do you understand that there is a stark philosophical difference between your position and the secular modern position?
With you, it’s all one unbroken whole, like soul and body, like the hypostatic union of Christ. An unseamed garment.
With the pro-choice modern, it’s simply this: a thing is what it is, at that point in time. Nothing more, nothing less. Its relative potential to become something more, notwithstanding.
So, if you argue that a zygote is human, scientifically, they will agree. If you argue that that particular form or phase of humanity is equal to or the same as an adult, they will immediately reject that, because that is a philosophical view.
Even if you say, “You were a zygote at some point, too. Given enough time, and the right conditions, so the zygote will also become an adult.”
The modern will say, “Potential is not fate, and nature, itself, discards most zygotes and even many embryos are miscarried. An adult is an adult, a child, a child. Neither is a zygote now.”
You see the zygote fully invested with all the qualities and fundamentals of humanity. The pro-choice person sees it as in the first stage of humanity - not yet fully vested.
