[Semper]

And, by your definition, none of the people dependent on IV's and feeding tubes are persons.

Completely wrong. My definition of a human person is a being with a human consciousness. People dependent on IV's and feeding tubes in the most part have consciousness and are aware of their existence. Human beings have no awareness or memory of pre-conception life or zygot life or fetal life. There is one clear event which initiates the beginning of human consciousness and that event is birth.

There may be evidence of brain activity before birth - there is brain activity in all manner of lower life forms - but the beginning of human consciousness can only be identified after being born into this human environment.

[hocndoc]

According to your personal belief about the criteria for human beings ( ""My definition of a human person is a being with a human consciousness. .... Human beings have no awareness or memory of pre-conception life or zygot life or fetal life.""), no one is a human until about 3 years old, some very few as early as 2 1/2 years old. And it *does* rule out many human beings who are currently defined as legal persons, other than infants and toddlers.

The human uterus is the first human environment.

Locality, ability, age, geography, or religion does not determine the humanity of an individual or his or her rights - the fact that the individual is a member of the species is sufficient. Rights are not endowed by anyone or any government or faith, otherwise rights may be limited, rationed, or revoked accordiing to latitude, longitude, law or personal belief. Either all humans are *human enough* to have their rights protected, or no one truly does --- in that case, might (of majority in power or force) would be the only marker between "rights" of "persons" and death and slavery for the "non-persons."