Do you REMEMBER your conception? -- didn't think so.
Do you remember what happened last night while you were sleeping? Do you remember what happened when you fell down when you were 18 months old? Does not remembering mean you were not alive at the time?
Sentience comes and goes -- a lack of sentience doesn't equate to not being alive...
Prior to that point, the embryo is a clump of cells indistinguishable from any other mamal's embryo.
Not quite true -- just count the chromosomes in any cell of the clump.
...so what is the difference from a human embryo, provided it hasn't developed a brain yet?
The difference is that the human embryo has the potential to develop a human brain; the animal cells never could.
No one knows when the moment of sentience comes -- the moment when life begins for a human being is easy to define, however -- the moment of conception.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you REMEMBER your conception? -- didn't think so.
Do you remember what happened last night while you were sleeping?
Do you remember what happened when you fell down when you were 18 months old?
Does not remembering mean you were not alive at the time?
Sentience comes and goes -- a lack of sentience doesn't equate to not being alive...
Prior to that point, the embryo is a clump of cells indistinguishable from any other mamal's embryo.
Not quite true -- just count the chromosomes in any cell of the clump.
The difference is that the human embryo has the potential to develop a human brain; the animal cells never could.
No one knows when the moment of sentience comes -- the moment when life begins for a human being is easy to define, however -- the moment of conception.