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Michael Tooley and other writers have argued for very high standards
both for personhood and for deciding what sorts of beings can
have rights. He believes that being a person requires, at the
very least, the capacity for thought. Neither the embryo nor the
fetus has this capacity and therefore it is not a person.
Furthermore, Tooley argues that to have a serious right to life a being must be capable of having desires and possess certain concepts (e.g., the concept of a continued existence). Since the embryo and the fetus do not have the necessary desires and concepts they do not have a serious right to life. It follows that to kill an embryo or a fetus does not violate its rights.
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