Redefining the Human Embryo

How convenient it would be for some if reality reshaped itself to match politically motivated redefinitions. Wesley Smith points us to Princeton biologist Lee Silver who admits that the term "pre-embryo" is political in his book Remaking Eden:

I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly...for reasons that are political, not scientific. [My emphasis.] The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day old embryo [the blastocyst] and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day old embryo [an embryo that has begun to develop differentiated tissues]. The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena--where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation--as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. "Don't worry," a doctor might say, "It's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating and freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back in your body."