Is an embryo a person?

Voters may have defeated the “personhood initiative” in Mississippi this week, but the debate over when life actually begins is far from over.

This debate is fascinating to me. Basically, the initiative would have defined legal personhood as beginning from the moment of fertilization. Opponents say that could bring serious ramifications to whether certain birth controls are legal and whether unused fertilized eggs for in-vitro fertilization would be considered homicides. Some people have even stretched the hypothetical questions to whether unborn babies would then count in voter redistricting or if a miscarriage could become manslaughter.

I’m not convinced that a fertilized egg is in fact a “person,” but as a mother, I can’t help but see the potential in every stage of a child’s development. That embryo may not yet be an official person, but it does have the potential to be one and so I consider it sacred. Each of my beautiful daughters started as nothing more than that.

At the same time, I don’t consider the early miscarriage I had two years ago to be a death. I consider it a fertilized egg that did not make it to personhood. It had the potential to be a child and I mourned the loss of that possibility, not the loss of an actual child.

So I’m torn by the question of when a person begins — which I think is different than when life begins. And while I think embryos deserve protection, I’m not sure declaring them “people” is the way to do it.

What do you think of the personhood initiative? When does a person truly begin?

Erin Stewart is a regular blogger for Deseret News. From stretch marks to the latest news for moms, Stewart discusses it all while her 4-year-old daughter crams Mr. Potato Head pieces in her little sister’s nose.