Fertilized eggs are not beings, never mind human beings.
Ontologically speaking even a stone is a being
So now we play with words.
You know what I meant, a sentient being, not that it merely exists.
Words are important
Edelman and the likes show that its not that easy to know where sentience and consciousness really starts or ends.
At which point you consider a cell or a group of cell is sentient or not ?
It is hard to determine exactly when this happens as it is a cumulative process, and it is dependent on the environment and genetics.
It is also species-dependent.
To be aware of your environment you need some sort of complex brain. In the case of a human pregnancy, I am sure that in most cases, a viable fetus is a sentient being.
Consciousness is a result of your brain processing all the inputs, current and past. When you deprive your brain of oxygen, it slowly dies, when all cells die and the RNA/DNA in your brain cells fragments, there is no going back, your brain is dead forever, and your consciousness ends forever.
The claim made earlier in this thread that a fertilized egg is a human being is so ridiculous that it blows my mind how people can be so dogmatic.
I only entertained it to lead them out of their logical fallacy.