What are human embryos?

Once again, a poster, SR, confronts us with the question of the nature of human embryos. Because they don’t look right. Because they can’t do enough.

There’s no question that the embryos involved are human embryos. They were created purposefully and intentionally. Human gametes were used, without question. If human cloning is ever successful, then human nuclear material will be used. They are no more “use” to the researchers than the animal embryos that SR mentions, if we don’t know whether they are human or not!

If not at fertilization (or generation, in the case of asexual reproduction), then when?

There is no other clear moment when we can say that this organism, this human being did not exist before, but there is this human being here, now.

The embryo is organized. He or she is an organism. His or her parents are human. He or she is a human. And he or she deserves the same protection from intentional, institutional killing orenslavement that the rest of us cherish and depend upon in order to have the time, technology and knowledge to carry out the very science that we are discussing.