…but only if you eat it.

That is the gist of the argument for embryonic stem cell research, as it has always been the argument for abortion on demand. But the inescapable fact is that (to borrow a phrase from friends) a developing embryo is the same biological entity now that it will be after forty weeks of gestation.

These microscopic clusters of cells aren’t life as most people think of it. They have the potential to become human only if they are successfully implanted in a woman’s uterus.

Your apple is food whether you choose to eat it or not. If it sits on the counter and eventually rots, that will be due to your neglect, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t nourishing food while it was healthy. Human beings develop from embryos. Whether they are implanted or not does not change their fundamental human nature. Like the apple does not stop being food until it’s spoiling, the human embryo does not stop being human life until it’s dead.