Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDog
I think it's fair to say that viability is a moving target.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Danzig
except it isn't, it hasn't changed. still 24 weeks, based on the law, and survival of preemies.
yeah, debate should continue.
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No doubt it will.
24 weeks is accepted legally for now. "Viability exists as a function of biomedical and technological capacities, which are different in different parts of the world. As a consequence, there is, at the present time, no worldwide, uniform gestational age that defines viability. Viability is not an intrinsic property of the fetus because viability should be understood in terms of both biological and technological factors."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11753511
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor argued in a 1983 decision that Roe was on a "collision course with itself." She said that improvements in technology would continually push the point of fetal viability closer to the beginning of the pregnancy, allowing states greater opportunity to regulate the right to an abortion. She had the foresight to see fetal viability as a moving target. See why these things aren't as cut and dried and some today would have us believe?
I would much prefer to see abortions decrease (or end? one can always hope) because of a societal change than by government decree. Government alone is as incapable of eliminating abortions as it is of eliminating poverty or drugs.