@savcheshire:
when egg meets sperm, that is the beginning of the developmental cycle of a human being, so yes, it is a baby.
It's the beginning of a developmental cycle that, if it concludes successfully, will result in a baby. This does not mean it is a baby at this point.
That's all embryo and fetus mean. Those are names for the first stages of development in an unborn BABY. That's science and medicine.
In medical terms, 'baby' is used as a synonym for 'infant' - which is the term used for a child of the period from birth to 1 year after birth.
I learned that in nursing school and in my anatomy and physiology class that I took while in nursing school.
Then I suggest you go get a refund, because they taught you wrong.
It's you little creatures that dehumanize the unborn so that you can kill them and in doing so, you dehumanize yourself. If you are a nonhuman at one point in your developmental cycle, why does that stop at birth?
Because to simply define 'person' as 'something that is human and alive' leads to ridiculousness. For example, semen is human and alive, and semen exiting the penis is simply an early stage of the normal sequence that results in a baby, so, by the same 'logic', to use this word rather loosely, this must mean a single sperm is a baby, so a teenage boy is committing mass infanticide when he jerks off.
The key factor is consciousness, and the best scientific evidence indicates that a fetus does not have anything that could even remotely be termed consciousness until at least 24 weeks into pregnancy, which is when the brain forms - and there is some evidence that it could be as late as 18-24 months after birth.