When is a Baby a Baby?

An unborn baby died yesterday after the car the mother was driving struck a guard rail and went into the Barwon River near Geelong:

The woman, who was about 30 weeks’ pregnant, managed to free herself from the car as it sank into the river on Friday evening …

Police are adding the unborn baby’s death to the road toll which now stands at 67, one fewer than for the same time last year.

I am glad that in this instance the child is being recognised as a person.

Similarly in this accident a few days ago in Texas:

A 17-year-old woman and her unborn baby were killed in a pedestrian crash Wednesday night in Horizon City.

Emergency crews took Nelly Pizarro, who was five months pregnant at the time of the crash, to Del Sol Medical Center. The baby died shortly after arriving at the hospital. Nelly Pizarro died Thursday morning.

What I don’t understand is what makes those babies ‘babies,’ and thousands who are aborted ‘foetal tissue.’

There is no difference in the babies. Surely we are not judging whether people are people on the basis of whether they are wanted or not?

And if that is what we are doing, how are we different from the Hutus when they decided the Tutsis were not human? Or Saddam Hussein and the Kurds? Or Hitler and the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals?

A person’s a person, no matter how small.