The reason religion is so powerful

[Mister Agenda]

So you're saying that it's reasonable to consider a cheek cell is a person if you can generate a viable clone from it, and the only thing actually needed for something to actually be a human person is that it be a genetically human potentially viable cell.

If the cells from your cheeks can be transformed into totipotent stem cells (and have whatever other zygote-like qualities are necessary), then yes, without question that is the beginning of a new organism. Its analogous to the hydra, in which any cell in its body is totipotent and can produce a new hydra organism.

Granting that, I still don't see how it gets us to forcing women to bear children against their will. No one is arguing that a fertilized egg isn't biologically human with the potential to eventually develop into a person, the argument is that there is no evidence that it is a person. An acorn is biologically an oak, but an acorn is not an oak tree. A bird egg is not a bird. How is an embryo a baby?

That is, we all agree that an acorn is potentially an oak tree, but I think we all also agree that it's not actually an oak tree.