You're begging the question. You haven't provided any reasons or arguments for your position. You've merely re-asserted it. It's akin to saying "It's true that x, because it's true that x".

How is my judgement that an embryo is innocent arbitrary? What crime has the embryo committed? What did it do to warrant being killed?

The trouble with your position is that you have to make an arbitrary judgement. You have to arbitrarily judge the fetus to be a person at some point. Is it at 12 weeks, 6 days, 32 weeks? The day before it is born? When, exactly? What criteria are you using for making that judgement? Why not the day before? Why not a day later?

My position doesn't require making an arbitrary judgement, or answering any of those silly questions. It requires making an intuitive, simple, straightforward observation: from the very moment that the sperm and the ovum meet and the genetic material between the two is exchanged (i.e., the egg is fertilized), a new human life is formed, with its own ends and identity. If nature takes its course, the person either dies naturally and the mother miscarries, or the embryo continues to develop and is subsequently born.

Further, I'm not just designating "any human cells" as innocent. I can't just designate "any human cells" and make them develop in the way that an embryo or a fetus develop. I'm talking about a specific group of spells, easily identifiable as distinct from the cells of the mother, that act in unison and coordination with one another through pregnancy to further develop the human being that has been there from the very beginning. If that is an arbitrary grouping of human cells, then I don't see how the same point can't be made to you, or to me (simply being an arbitrary collection of human cells), but everyone would recognize that this (you are an arbitrary collection of human cells, in contrast to a fully-fledged human 'life') would be absurd.

In addition, you seem to be implying that we need to use different definitions of murder in different contexts, but I don't see that's the case. How isn't the definition I provided inclusive of every instance of murder?

TLDR: it's not as simple as just "fetus", but there is much disagreement around when a developing clump of cells becomes protected under the law.

Anyway, a more reasonable definition of murder requires the victim to be a _person_ and an embryo is not a person.

Personhood is a strange phenomenon, and there's definitely room for a grey area. But embryos aren't in that grey area, not even close.

* Right to an attorney to represent it and its needs. (6th Amendment)

* And the right to bring a Habeas Corpus suit before the court.

In short the argument is going to go like this:

Jail is a dangerous place. If the mother is killed, likely the fetus/person will be killed as well. Hence the Habeas plea.

I think if you are at all serious about fetuses attaining personhood status (with all the rights and privileges thereof), you would want the court to do something to protect the life of the fetus here, even if the court can't separate the mother from the fetus.

People understand that murder is illegal - but life isn't just two states. Alive or Dead. If we were living in 20,000 BCE then maybe we could be forgiven for thinking this way, but we live in an advanced, modern, (presumably) ethical civilization where life is about flourishing and giving everyone opportunities to thrive.

Focusing on the fetus's rights, yet condemning children to a life that's designed from the start to prevent flourishing is the conundrum people are referring to and pointing out the hypocrisy of.

You can very easily not send a child to jail (because they have full legal personhood), but right now this fetus is considered 'part of the mother' as it relates to incarceration.

Hard to argue that a fetus has some constitutional rights, but isn't subject to the Fourth Amendment.

Like I said, a judge will make the argument that the fetus' environment is the womb and by that definition, their circumstances have not changed by being in jail, but that feels thin?

In states where personhood is established at birth, you can still be found guilty of murder if your actions result in the death of a unborn person outside the limited exemption of medical abortion.

The point is for people making snarky comments such as "can the embryo run for president in 35 years?" and "can I claim it on my taxes?"

The legal system has different levels of protection all across the US, federally and on a state level, for unborn children/fetuses/however you want to call it. Being granted one legal status does not automatically grant all legal statuses. Pretending otherwise is just willfully ignoring centuries of established legal practices to make a petty point that doesn't actually hold up.

The circumstances of the case, that is that it involves death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery, is not material to the validity of the argument.

They did not say: even if they are embryos. They said all unborn children.

This does not mean embryos ARE children. That was not what was argued nor what the court decided upon. You are inferring meaning outside the scope of the ruling. They side stepped the part you are upset about. They are very, very clear that this is about unborn children. The word embryos only appear once - while discussing the surround context, not the finding of the court or the question they were answering.

Ah, there's the rub: How to define "anyone."

(In my 1960s Catholic family, my parents encouraged us four kids to discuss issues of the day at the dinner table. One night the discussion was about abortion, and specifically, when does a fetus become human. My dad joked that he often wondered whether fetuses didn't become human until they could cut their own meat ....)

We don't agree that an unborn fetus isn't yet a person. I was deconstructing your logic. I think a person is created the moment sex cells fuse. Sometimes I even think about the hypothetical potential of a person and what they'd want me to do, such that they could one day exist and tell me.

My use of the word 'murder' is for dramatic effect to emphasize my beliefs. I concede that it's an opinion counter to the current laws, and thus technically incorrect. Still gonna call it that though.

I could argue that ability of an organism to survive on its own is not a requirement nor a sufficient criteria for neither personhood (a legal construct) or anything in lines of sentience, self-awareness and sapience (philosophical constructs commonly associated with a person, although it's not a clear cut - e.g. a person may become incapacitated and is still considered a person).

I mean people who injure a pregnant woman and it results in fetal death are criminally charged. So in that case we do consider it worthy of protection under the law.

Adding exceptions is antithetical to the belief it is murder. One does not get to murder another person because they were a child of incest. On the other hand, not adding an exception for abortion is monstrous.

If you agree that forcing a woman to give birth to a child of rape or incest is monstrous, then maybe you’ll agree abortion isn’t murder. If you think it’s not monstrous, I hope it never happens to you or someone you love just to be taught a hard lesson in empathy for others.

I’m unsure why you’re quoting the definition of a legally induced abortion and why you feel it important to your argument.