Is a Fertilized Egg a Person?

Question

If asked to decide if a fertilized egg is a person, how would you vote?

When should a fetus be entitled to a separate status as a person? That is a philosophical question, not a scientific question.

Answer 1

Yes, it is


...why do you ask?

Answer 2

Personally, I don't think so. There is a whole lot of development to go through before the zygote becomes an embryo and then a viable fetus. This whole argument over the instance of "personhood" strikes me as just as useless as the argument over "real" vs. "ideal". Fine if you want a good beer-driven philosophical discussion, but ultimately rather pointless. Imagine the legal ramifications, for instance, if all the women who suffered miscarriages were prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter - which defining "personhood" this way would seem to lead to. In the end, most of these philosophical points come down to practical legalities one way or the other.

Answer 3

The attempt to define moral status based on objective markers identified through biology or religion is bound to fail. Judgments of "humanity", personhood or any similar determination of moral protectedness are not a matter of definition, of finding the intrinsic biological property of an entity taht makes it morally protectable, but are instead the outcome of a complex moral choice involving many competing considerations. Biological occurrences are processes rather than events. Along the continuum of human development we have to make achoice based on these competing considerations.
In my opinion, based on this balancing, to give embryos the full moral status as a person is outweighed by the benefits that research offers for the treatment of diseases.

To illustrate the difficulty with regard to the moral status of an embryo as a person consider this: Some studies suggest that in normal healthy women, between two-thirsds and three quarters of all fertilized eggs do not go on tho implant in the womb or are lost. If ebryos have the same moral status as children we would be faced with the loss of thousands or millions of lives each year due to spontaneous abortion. Yet the way we respond to the natural loss of embryos suggests that we do not regard these events as the moral or religious equivalent of infnat mortality. Otherwise wouldnt we carry out the same burial rituals and the same rites of mourning for the loss of an embryo that we observe for the death of a child?

Below I have listed some sources that might be helpful to form your own judgment
2 months ago
Source(s):
National Institute of Health, report of the Human embryo Research Panel 1994

Presidents Council for Bioethics: Human cloning and Human Dignity, 2002

Ammercian Association for the Advancement of Science, Stem Cell Research and Applications, 1999

Answer 4

I Have To Say No, Until Its Growing In A Mother Womb. I Think The Second It Goes In A Mothers Womb And Starts 2 Develop, Then Its A Living Thing..

Answer 5

A fertilized egg IS a person.
It is the very first stage of the development of the person.


So what if they don't LOOK like a person... he / she IS.
They're only growing, like you and me. They're just still in their mother's womb.

And if you stop the process of the person's growth, you are killing him / her. That is obvious.

Answer 6

That's a very controversial question. No, I don't believe that a fertilized egg is a person.

Answer 7

You're going to have a very hard time getting a consensus with this question.

You can ask a hundred doctors this question and many of them will respond differently.

Answer 8

i would vote yes, but i think a fetus should be called a person when it is born

Answer 9

No, it's a cell. If it were a person, then all the sperm CELLS are little people too. That's what they are- cells. Nothing more. Besides, babies cannot feel or anything until a month or so.

Answer 10

It's a mass of frickin cells. Not a person.

Answer 11

No. It is not a person until it begins to develop an heart and nervous system.