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Your analogy is better applied to the moment following birth, rather than the earliest age along the continuum that is an individual organism.

There are a number of key developmental steps in the development of sexually-reproduced organisms of various species. Although many of the steps are common to all or almost all sexually-reproduced species, not all species perform the steps in the same order.

The step which seems most significant in discussing most plants is germination. Whereas an ungerminated seed may remain viable for a significant length of time without developing or growing in any way, once a seed germinates it must from that point forward continue developing or else die.

I would posit that most if not all other sexually-reproduced species reach a similar point in development, though in some it happens earlier than others. In the case of most plants, it doesn't occur until after the decendent organism has left the host; in humans, it happens earlier.

I guess I would say that an unimplanted embryo is like an ungerminated seed--it has the ingredients for life, but is waiting for a stimulus to start the real development in motion. As such, it is neither fully alive nor dead; rather, it is in stasis awaiting further developments.

"... but is waiting for a stimulus to start the real development in motion." Actually, as the embryo breaks out of the cell membrane it has occupied during the transit from fallopian tube (where it was conceived) to the uterus, the embryo has already differentiated its cells to the point of having specialized cells that release chorionic growth hormone, which signals the woman's uterus organ to build capillaries in the embryo's location. The embryo desolves uterine epithelial cells and burrows into the lining of the woman's organ.

I appreciate your opinion on similarities between plant seeds and human embryos, but it is not scientifically supported since the zygote, as soon as it has formed two more cells, begins to differentiate via methylation process that can be defined as either mitosis generated by the male provided chromosomal mass or the female chromosomal provided mass, yet the director of mitosis is the 46 chromosome individual already living along its lifetime.