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It isn't easy to understand just how potential enters into deciding whether an embryo is the sort of thing that can have rights (or be a person).

A sperm cell or an ovum also has potential. Given the right conditions (i.e., the right contact with the other kind of gamete) it too will develop into the kind of being that can have rights. Still, no one regards it as the sort of thing that can have rights. The embryo seems more 'complete.' We could say it needs only warmth and nutrition. It has all 46 chromosomes instead of only 23. But why do these differences matter? Suppose that the embryo had only 40 chromosomes until late in pregnancy when 6 more formed. Would this mean that it would not have rights prior to acquiring the last 6?

Reference: There are discussions of potential in Devine (p. 94) and Sumner (p. 99).