After fertilization and during earliest cell divisions: zygote.
(something something): embryo.
(more something something): fetus.
(eventually): dependent you claim on tax forms.
Totally just my spotty recollection from school decades ago, but it seems to me like rudimentary biology classes have taught a distinction between fetuses, embryos, and zygotes for a long time.
The point I really want to make with my somewhat unqualified answer is that no one in my rural, conservative hick town was objecting to this knowledge back then. It was just stuff you learned, and most of us just seemed to take it as “nature is complex”. I don’t know why we try to simplify it so much as we grow up. Even agricultural types (farmers, ranchers) would probably not say a fertilized bovine zygote is already a hamburger.
Fair question. I recall learning:
Totally just my spotty recollection from school decades ago, but it seems to me like rudimentary biology classes have taught a distinction between fetuses, embryos, and zygotes for a long time.
The point I really want to make with my somewhat unqualified answer is that no one in my rural, conservative hick town was objecting to this knowledge back then. It was just stuff you learned, and most of us just seemed to take it as “nature is complex”. I don’t know why we try to simplify it so much as we grow up. Even agricultural types (farmers, ranchers) would probably not say a fertilized bovine zygote is already a hamburger.