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You should study the subject before you discuss it anymore.

What can I study that will convince me that a zygote is a human? I believe my morality based on philosophy is adequate for me. I can always be more thorough and thoughtful, but I can't go any further than my faith in my own empathy.

Palmer, try thinking about it this way!

Nothing in nature is other than what it is. In other words, applied to life, every living thing is either a species member or a part of a species member. One of your liver cells is a living thing, but it isn't a species member. Rather, it is a part of a species member. The collective living cells of your body compose a species member, namely you!

You have more cells composing you now than you did when you were four years old. And at age four you had more cells composing you than when you were in your mother's womb. But you were still you. You were conceived as a unique entity of one cell. Those cells multiplied over many years until you reached adulthood. Even then, the number of cells composing you fluctuates constantly, as you gain or lose weight, old cells die and are replaced by new ones, etc.

The difference between a zygote and any other cell is that ONLY a zygote is a separate species member. All other cells compose a species member. A zygote is a being of its species. Other cells are part of a being of its species.

When people say that a zygote or early human embryo lacks human qualities, they are engaging in a fallacy which I have seen referred to as "unanthropomorphizing". They are denying human qualities to something that is clearly human.

Nothing is other than what it is. The qualities possessed by, let's say, a human embryo at six weeks gestation, are precisely the qualities a human being at that stage of development is supposed to possess. To say that it lacks human qualities is an impossibility. It may lack qualities it will later possess, but that is just its nature. A five year old girl lacks the capacity to reproduce, but that doesn't make her less human than a 20 year old who has had a baby. Being unable to conceive is a quality of human beings at age five.

Any capacity a human embryo lacks is one a human being at that stage of life is supposed to lack. Conception is the creation of a new human species member from parts (sperm & ovum) of two existing species members. The resulting zygote is a new human being. We were all conceived. It wasn't something else that was conceived. We didn't replace something else at birth or at "viability" or at some other point. We existed through those points after having been conceived.

If you believe that depending on scientific knowledge (fallacy #1) is religious, then I doubt I can change your mind.
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