Abstract
Furthermore, both of these claims are true even if, as a matter of fact, the child never walks or exercises the rational powers because of some contingent accident (e.g., birth defects or accidental early death). Since that newborn is ontologically identical to all of her previous (and subsequent) time slices of existence, those essential properties belonged to her from the beginning of her existence at conception. [...]the killing of the embryo is morally equivalent to the killing of any other kind of rational being.