>>not to mention as a tool to dehumanize fetuses by the Choice advocates, even to this day.<<
The version of this argument that I have seen was remarkable for its misrepresentation of biology. One of my undergrad biology teachers posted the editorial on his door, but I did not have the boldness to ask if this was to exemplify bad misuse of science. The commentator claimed that, in the course of development, a human embryo is not really human but more like other kinds of organisms. This is utterly ridiculous. Early embryos look more generic, but a non-human embryo looks like a human embryo just as much as a human embryo looks like a non-human embryo. In other words, there is as much ground for claiming that the other animal is more human at earlier stages as there is for claiming that we are more like them. More importantly, a developing human is still a human, not a fish or whatever else. Furthermore, the evolutionary sequence that she claimed was thoroughly wrong, putting birds as ancestral to humans.
To claim that embryos are qualitatively different from infants the way many abortion advocates do is to argue for a bizzare form of special creation, not for evolutionary continuity.
It may also be worth noting that killing your own offspring is generally a poor strategy for evolutionary success. The only exception is if conditions are so desperate that either you or the child, but not both, can survive, and you would have a greater chance than the child of later producing offspring during better times.
Dr. David Campbell
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That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droigate Spa
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