Quote:
Originally Posted by zuluking
Although I'm no scientist or bioethicist (as you've probably guessed!), I would suggest the first developmental milestone is fertilization. As without that milestone, no other milestone is possible - differentiation, structure, organization or otherwise.
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If you wanted to get into such detail, you can list many things, such as germ layer separation (I think that's within days of fertilization. It was listed that the inner cell mass was created within 14). I think these were the primary milestones of fetus development and listing fertilization is a bit trivial, as it is the marker of the start of that system anyways.
EDIT - As to where I stand on the issue: I'm almost a fair fit down the middle. I believe that abortions should be legal and ethical until the point where the child has a reasonable chance of survival post abortion, in which case only overruling circumstances regarding the status of the mother would give just cause for the operation.