It’s true that human embryos and fetuses are not self-aware; however, abortion advocate and Princeton University bioethicist Peter Singer has noted that neither are newborns. According to Singer, then, if fetuses aren’t human persons because they aren’t self-aware, neither are newborns. Self-awareness is one of many capacities humans exhibit throughout their lives. These do not define our humanity, rather they describe our stage of development. A fetus cannot immediately exercise self-awareness in the same way that a female newborn cannot yet get pregnant. These development markers do not negate their humanity; rather, the newborn and fetus are exhibiting the exact characteristics of humans in those respective stages of development. To select any characteristic humans exhibit, such as self-awareness, and make it the benchmark for human personhood is prejudicial and destroys human equality. If our value is tied to our self-awareness, then it would follow that those who are more self-aware are more valuable and deserving of more rights than those who are less self-aware. The only way to establish veritable equality is to recognize that as soon as a human begins to exist—which is at fertilization—she is inherently equal to every other human regardless of varying stages of development (or skin color, sex, etc).