[jas3]

"If they are placed in a womb, then aborted a few hours later, were they ever people?"

Wow. That's an inflammatory question. I would consider any such procedure to be immoral medical experimentation on humans.

I took this question to be one about spontaneous abortion, as opposed to abortion by a person who had just done the implant. Most implanted embryos abort on their own.

jas3

[free_at_jsl.com]

Well, I interpreted the word "aborted" as an active verb. I suppose in the context of the sentence, maybe it should be interpreted as you did. In that case, in my opinion they certainly never were "people".