Perhaps those who wish to use personhood and talk of dignity would admit that someone is human, and yet not a person (and therefore justify euthanasia being inflicted upon certain people, and so on).
X is human if X has powers a, b, c.
We know X has powers a, b, c if we observe it exercising powers a, b, c.
We do not observe it exercising powers a, b, c. --> We do not know X has powers a, b, c. --> We do not know it is human.
This is not the same as:
We do not observe it exercising powers a, b, c. --> X is not human.
Which would be a invalid conclusion.
Now is the following sound?
X is human if and only if it has powers a, b, c.
It does not seem so.
After all, it might be that:
The conceptum has the power of development, through which it is able to generate the organs needed for rational powers. And, it seems that the conceptum is the same thing as the mature adult, in so far as there is a continuity of existence. There is no external agent observed to be generating a human being from the conceptum; rather the conceptum develops itself.
(Can this be taken as an additional argument for the real distinction between the soul and its powers?)
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