"At what stage does the fetus have the possibility of being self-aware ?"
"Self-awareness ' is not a strictly objective , scientific term . I recall reading in my college psychology textbooks that the concept labeled 'self-awareness ' does n't happen until many months after birth . At the end of the day , in order to answer the question , I think you 'd need a pretty solid definition of self-awareness , and coming to agreement on what 'self-awareness ' is or should be may not be an easy task . In a strictly biological sense , there is no debate that the biological life of a mammal begins at the point of conception/fertilization . There is no reasonable dispute to this observed fact . Only when subjective terms such as 'self-awareness ' and 'personhood , ' etc . come into play can there be valid debates . Show me a biologist or embryologist who states that the biological development of a unique mammal does not begin at conception/fertilization , and I 'll show you a semantics game . It is perfectly valid for someone to have the opinion that 'life ' begins with recordable brain activity ( as early as 40-days post-conception ) ... or 'self-awareness ' or any other such concept , or when the entity would be 'viable ' outside the womb . But there are varying levels of brain activity . There is no agreed upon definition of self-awareness . And viability is an ever-changing concept ( a 12-week fetus was delivered recently in Minnesota , and as far as I know is still alive and doing well -- please feel free to update me if you have heard any other news ) . If we look to biology to answer the question of when a unique entity begins its biological development that will not end until it 'dies , ' then the answer is conception/fertilization ."
"what stage does the fetus have the possibility of being self-aware ?"
"There is no agreed upon definition of self-awareness"