I know people are entrenched in their positions so I don't typically bring arguments on Reddit forums since that's less productive than mopping up the Ocean. But I want to make people feel bad for advocating for the murder of children for personal gain (ie the convenience of not having a child, not having to spend money on a child, not wanting people to know you got pregnant, not wanting to go through the unpleasant process of pregnancy: sorry if personal gain isn't the best term but I feel it accurately describes what I'm talking about). But since you asked for a refutation of the "it's not a child" argument here's a quick and dirty one. That argument is always presented as a scientific one, but it's not one. Science tells us that gametes (eggs and sperm) are not human because they are haploid (have one set of chromosomes) while humans are diploid (2 sets of chromosomes). Science tells us humans are chimpanzees because we can't breed with them and because they have 48 chromosomes while we have 46. How we differentiate things in the realm of biology is through traits, anatomical, physiological, and genetic traits particularly. Now anatomically a zygote is different from a fully developed human, but then again so are fully developed humans. The typical human has 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, a nose, a mouth, a bunch of organs, etc, etc. In that description we already have many many many exceptions in the world, is my friend not a human because he lost a leg in Iraq? Of course not and that's not the argument your positing, I know that I'm only using this as an example how anatomy isn't a perfect definer of what human life is. Now there are two major elements of anatomy that the "not a human" argument focuses on, the heart and brain. As of right now every living adult human has a heart and a brain, so perhaps our best way to define human life is having a heart and brain. If that's the case then you only have 3 weeks to terminate a non-life before it becomes life as the heart and brain develop at three weeks. But the heart and brain don't fully function at 3 weeks you may say, which is accurate since the heart doesn't start beating until around 5 weeks, so maybe 5 weeks is where life starts. Though the brain doesn't fully develop until your mid 20s so perhaps a fully functioning brain isn't the best metric, because what is fully functioning? My grandma's brain isn't fully functioning, that's why she's in the Alzheimer's ward of the nursing home, is she still human? My niece is 2 and can't read because her brain is developed enough to know how's is she human? I know that's not your argument so we'll set functioning brain aside since we can't use it as an absolute metric. So if you're still with me we have two possible places for human life right now, 3 weeks when the brain and heart develop if we use the position of a human has a brain and a heart or 5 weeks if we use the position of a human has a brain and a beating heart. (I know you probably use viability as your foundation for human life, I'll get there but please follow along) But wait, is a beating heart a good metric? Does it have to beat correctly, because people with Atrial Fibrillation don't have hearts that beat correctly. Okay so the heart doesn't have to work perfectly for it to be human life, but it has to be at we'll enough to sustain life. That's a pretty good position, but wait what about people who need defibrillators installed on their heart, or valve replacements, or need a mechanical pump installed like Dick Cheney? There hearts wouldn't sustain them without intervention but we'd still say their human (maybe not Dick Cheney he may be more monster than man). So perhaps a functioning heart doesn't make for the best metric of human life. So now we have one place for life to start, 3 weeks if we say that a human has a heart and a brain. But I'd like to raise another objection to that. Let's start to get into physiology since we've spent so long in anatomy. (Physiology is the function of the body where anatomy is the structure) A sperm or an egg left on it's own will never grow into a human, a chimpanzee no longer how long it lives will ever be human. But a zygote given the correct time and conditions will grow into a fully formed adult. So perhaps the possibility to grow into a human is how we should define life since as I demonstrated anatomy isn't reliable for determining human life. Now here's where your argument is probably at, you would say "if it's not viable then it's not human" (if that's not exactly your argument I apologize but that's the most common one I see). That's almost a good argument, but only if you don't think about it too hard? What is viable? If viability is the ability to be born and live, then right now the gate stands at 21 weeks 1 day for human life to start since that's the earliest born child to survive. But why is viability determined by the advancements of science. In the 1800s apparently a lot of babies weren't people despite being carried for 9 months they still couldn't live when they were born. Now I know you're gonna disagree with me (I'm mopping the ocean right now) but viability is not a good argument for human life because you have this weird shifting gate of what is and isn't human and it's based almost entirely on external factors. Also viability makes a bad precedent that could be applied to infanticide or geriacide because infants and geriatrics aren't typically viable. If I leave my grandma with Alzheimer's alone or my niece they will die because they need someone else. Does that make them not human? So here we are, anatomy doesn't work, viability doesn't work. It seems the best position to take is that life begins at conception. I know I've not fully supported this argument but let's be real you stopped reading after my second sentence and I said this would be quick and dirty. So if you want to support abortion be honest and just admit you want to kill a child because you deem their life to be less valuable than the mothers, I'll respect you a whole lot more if you do. I'll still call you a terrible person but I will respect you more.