A living, fertilized embryo - even if conceived in vitro, and even if not yet implanted in the endometrium of the uterus - is, indeed, alive (that cannot be doubted); further, it is a person. A frozen embryo, however, is not alive. I.e. it does not meet the conditions of the definition of "alive." To do that, it would have to have a metabolism.
But as long as we're proposing thought experiments here, riddle me this: What if I took that sperm sample and used it to fertilize the ova of 100 million Chinese women. Would those 100 million resultant children be eligible for Social Security benefits?
What?! You're saying that that was not what S.S. was originally designed for?
Regards,
so a man works 45 years paying into the system.
his wife and him want to have children, but she is diagnosed with cancer and will have to undergo radiation treatments. So they collect her eggs before hand and combine them with his sperm and freeze the resulting embryo. After her treatments, she is declared free of cancer and they start planning to have the frozen embryo unfrozen and implanted into her.
But.. before the embryo is unfrozen and implanted, the husband dies in an accident.
According to you, if she goes ahead and implants the embryo a week after his death, the resultant child shouldn't get any benefits?