Human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are an in vitro model of early neural 
development, aimed at modelling and understanding brain development and 
neurological disorders. In just a few years there has been rapid and 
considerable progress in the attempt to create a brain model capable of 
showcasing the characteristics of the human brain. There are still strong 
limitations to address, including the absence of vascularization which makes it 
difficult to feed the central layers of the organoid. Nevertheless, some 
important features of the nervous system have recently been observed in cerebral 
organoids: they manifest electrical activity (i.e. communication between 
neurons), are sensitive to light stimulation and are able to connect to a spinal 
cord by sending impulses that make a muscle contract. Recent data show that 
cortical organoid network development at ten months resembles some preterm 
babies EEG patterns. Although cerebral organoids are not close to human brains 
so far due to their extremely simplified structure, this state of things gives 
rise to ethical concerns about the creation and destructive experimental use of 
human cerebral organoids. Particularly, one can wonder whether a human cerebral 
organoid could develop some degree of consciousness and whether, under certain 
conditions, it could acquire its own moral status with the related rights. In 
this article, I discuss the conditions under which HCOs could be granted their 
own moral status. For this purpose, I consider the hypothesis that HCOs might 
develop a primitive form of consciousness and investigate the ways in which it 
could be detected. In light of all this, I finally point out some cautionary 
measures that could be introduced into research on and with human cerebral 
organoids.