I personally have some philosophical difficulty for totally accepting the status of 'humanity' for an individual that is unable to 'survive on its own'. In past cultures, with high infant death rates, this was often at an age of several years - now the concept of 'premmie babies' has permanently entered our culture - at least until the 'Great Catastrophe' when Medical Science goes backwards technically...
Totally accepting that 'humanity' can arbitarily be granted to any other 'state of existence' than that above can lead to some serious nightmares - some of which have been explored by fiction writers.
Totally denying the 'status of humanity' though - as I discussed above, also seems fraught with danger - some possible paths have been explored by writers, as well as graphically illustrated by past episodes of History.