No, I'm not playing with semantics in the least. You are using definitions and laws, arbitrarily set by people - subject to change at any time - as the final authority on what does and what does not constitute a living being with it's own rights - in other words a person.
The law is all we have. At present, in the US the lives of all human beings are protected unless law specifically enumerates the conditions upon which that right may be denied. No law specifically enumerates such conditions for unborns.
You hold the concept that all persons are human beings, and all human beings are persons.
The only qualification that the law makes for organic beings to be persons is that they be human beings. Unborns at any stage of development are undeniably human beings.
Thus far, you have faild to show that all human beings are not persons. You admit that "personhood" is undefinable and that we don't know exactly when it begins. Since you, nor anyone else, can say when personhood begins, exactly how do you justify killing those which you can't possibly know are persons or not?
Do you believe it is morally and legally justifiable to set off an explosive charge in a mine based on the argument that you didn't know whether or not anyone was in the mine? Do you believe it is morally and legally justifiable to burn a house down based on the argument that you just didn't know whether or not someone was in there?
What gives those laws any kind of authority? What grants these rights that the laws uphold? Are you saying life and death decisions are based upon arbitrary human whims?
So now you are arguing that we shoud simply disregard the law? Since you can't logically argue around it, your answer is to disregard it?
All human beings are not persons because the definition of a person is more than just a biological entity - it includes some form of conciousness, environmental awareness.
You say that, but you can't prove it. Nor can you identify when it happens. Nor does the law agree with you since no qualification is put on being a person beyond being a human being (or a certain type of corporate entitity)
Newborns have always enjoyed the protection of the law because law has traditionally held that once a baby is born, it is a person - not because it's a human.
Traditionally, we weren't exactly sure what was going on inside and were only sure once the child was born. "Traditionally" we believed all sorts of things that turned out not to be true. Harking to tradition is fine so long as new knowledge has not superceeded it, but once we know that what we thought we knew is wrong, it is time to disregard the old knowledge and adopt the new.
"Traditionally" we believed that blacks were not human beings and when the body of evidence became undeinable, those who still wished to exploit them argued that they were inferior human beings. Then their ability to learn was called into question and the list of objections to simply admitting that the only difference between them and whites was pigment went on and on and still some argue a more profound difference even in the face of a very large body of evidence to the contrary.
Your argument is no different. First was the argument that the were not human beings, then that they were partial human beings, then that they were only partially alive, then that they were not persons. Here, you find that you can't effectively argue around the law so you suggest that the law itself is pointless.
The problem with using the kind of logic that I would use if my life were on the line is that if my life were on the line, I naturally would not want to end it. There is absolutely no logic I could use to justify it. But then - neither would a dog want to lose it's life, or a dolphin. No living being would.
Why not answer the question honestly. Why not simply say that you can't formulate an argument for the killing of unborns that you would find acceptable if it were your life that was to be ended.
You claimed that there is absolutely no logic that you could use to justify ending your own life. Is that really true? Do you believe that you have the right kill others at will and that one would not be justified in killing you if you were attacking them with the intent to kill them? Do you believe that another would not be justified in killing you if your actions were genuinely threatening their life even if you had no intention of causing them harm?
