The little problem with using fetal viability as a standard

I'd like to respond to some comments here and discuss something that came up in another thread:

Basically it's the fetal viability standard.
The basic idea, for any of you who may not be familiar with it, is that when a baby can survive outside of the womb, it has rights. Legal, but also by implication it seems, ethical. (I'm assuming all the pro-choicers here do not hold to the concept of moral rights)

The idea seems simple enough. If the baby can survive without the woman, it would be murder to kill it. Of course, the flip side to this concept is that if the fetus can't survive apart from the woman, it doesn't have any rights apart from her.

Well I'd like to discuss some of the flaws of using the fetal viability standard.

To start off with, not all developing babies are exactly the same. Some may be "viable" at 28 weeks, others in rare circumstances may be able, with intensive medical care, to survive coming out at 22 weeks. You can't set an exact time table when a fetus is going to be able to survive and when it's not going to survive. A lot of babies are not able to survive coming out at 30 weeks, that's still considered very premature. Can anyone really think that at 23 weeks it's a fetus and then at 24 weeks suddenly it's a baby with rights? That is like an arbitrary cutoff date. Just because, statistically, a fetus has a 50-50 chance of being able to survive long term if it comes out at 24 weeks.

But medical technology is constantly improving. With better odds for extremely premature deliveries, are we going to see that cutoff date shift to 23 weeks?

And do we define viability as the fetus being able to survive by itself, or being able to survive with medical help? No baby can really survive by itself, it needs warmth, it needs milk. Is medical care somehow inherently different from the care of a mother?

What if medical technology radically advances and it enables fetuses to survive at 14 weeks? Will fetuses at 14 weeks then be accorded rights?

You see, the fetal viability standard raises more potential questions than it answers. You try to set an exact date when the fetus should be accorded rights, it is arbitrary. (I mean at the very least some sort of graduated approach should be used, from a legal standpoint)

But now let me address a different aspect of this. The fetal viability standard makes the fundamental premise that a fetus who cannot survive apart from the woman does not have rights. Can someone explain this exactly?

No baby can survive without help of another human being.
Let me go further and create a hypothetical scenario here. A woman and her baby wash ashore on a deserted island. If the woman doesn't provide the baby with sustenance from her body (milk) the baby will die. The baby is still dependent on her, just like it was dependent on her while it was in the womb.

A hospital patient in a coma can't survive without help. Does he have less of a right to live?
I believe that's a close analogy here. You can't just barge into a hospital and pull the plug on someone else's life support machine.

Especially if that person is expected to wake up from the coma in nine months. That would just be terrible.

Some babies have special medical conditions. They may not be able to breathe on their own. If the lungs are not able to work yet, even though they're supposed to, does that mean the baby has less rights?
What does that mean for fetal viability?

I'm making a lot of presumptions here but I'm just trying to cover all my bases in the OP.

 

Not sure what point you have this time but you start off WRONG


YOU: ""The basic idea, for any of you who may not be familiar with it, is that when a baby can survive outside of the womb, it has rights."""


NO, the fetus does not have rights......it has PROTECTIONS.....


Guess ya have to start over with some other meaningless "point"



...and you still have no idea of what pregnancy entails and how the fetus is connected to the woman it's in.....it doesn't just float around only connected by the umbilical cord...there's a lot more to it that involves the facts and science that Anti-Choicers fear.

Hence , you proceed with the trite, debunked, oft-explained away crap about

""No baby can survive without help of another human being.
Let me go further and create a hypothetical scenario here. A woman and her baby wash ashore on a deserted island. If the woman doesn't provide the baby with sustenance from her body (milk) the baby will die. The baby is still dependent on her, just like it was dependent on her while it was in the womb.

A hospital patient in a coma can't survive without help. Does he have less of a right to live?
I believe that's a close analogy here. You can't just barge into a hospital and pull the plug on someone else's life support machine."""

 

Those so enthralled by saving a fetus should simply pool their funds to create a means of paying for the care needed to keep the fetus alive and support it until adoption...perhaps also an organization devoted to enabling said adoptions. Unless of course you feel the government should do so with the taxes we all pay that you biatch about being used to prevent the unwanted fetus in the first place (which are not actually used).
Maybe even recruiting some females to promote your message who actually agree with you since they are the ones you will take control of.

 

Looks like someone learned the difference between "rights" and "protection".



..end of thread ...

 

Someone tell me why a fetus's dependence on the mother means she can kill it.

That thing is going to come out of her in 9 months and it's an entirely natural process.

I know some choices have compared this to organ donation but a baby doesn't permanently take anything away from the woman.

Abortion doesn't save a woman from having to have her cervix pried open either. One way or the other, that baby is coming out.

 

It doesn't.

So? Was there a point in that somewhere?

I haven't see a choicer compare this to organ donation.

Some of us have pointed out that NO person has the right to use another's body to sustain their life so IF a fetus is deemed a person it also cannot use another's body to sustain it's life.

Forcing a woman to gestate against her will is like forcing someone to give you their heart because you need a new one....nobody has that right..

And yes pregnancy affects a woman's body for the rest of her life....please don't comment on something you have shown you know nothing about...

There is no baby in an abortion......

 

I thought most of the pro-choicers here (maybe not you) were saying fetal viability is the main legal and ethical reason a woman has the right to an abortion.

Do I have that right? Doesn't fetal viability = dependence on the mother ?


Here, let me quote Hoosier again from that other thread:

hoosier88 is basically saying (in his opinion) that the whole "fetus being part of the woman's body" is really just a side issue, and that the primary issue is fetal viability, which is why I'm focusing on that in this thread.

It's difficult to focus on more than one pro-choice argument at a time. Fetus being a part of someone else's body, fetal viability, brain capacity, I can't focus on them all at once.

 

No, women have a right to have an abortion because they have a right to their own bodies.

A fetuses viability has nothing to do with women's rights to their own body....


except a fetus does have some "protections", it's against the law to abort a healthy fetus after 23 weeks if the woman's life and/or health are not in danger.
This is an unnecessary "protection" but a compromise with the Anti's.

Yes, you have the right to your own body. Yes, a fetus is viable when , if born, it could survive on it's own, a fully formed fetus..

Sorry if you want a conversation with Hoosier, have it with him ....and don't interpret for him either...

To help you out of your confusion read up, in a medical book not a website, what happens during pregnancy. You seem to have no idea.





Pro-Choice is simple, bottom line, women have the same rights as everyone else...they don't lose them because they get pregnant.

 

YOU: """""That thing is going to come out of her in 9 months and it's an entirely natural process."""




So? Was there a point in that somewhere?

 

[

Have I helped you figure out your confusion on organ ""donation""" issue?

I haven't see a choicer compare this to organ donation.

Some of us have pointed out that NO person has the right to use another's body to sustain their life so IF a fetus is deemed a person it also cannot use another's body to sustain it's life.

Forcing a woman to gestate against her will is like forcing someone to give you their heart because you need a new one....nobody has that right..

And yes pregnancy affects a woman's body for the rest of her life....please don't comment on something you have shown you know nothing about...

 

It does not....the woman having the right to her own body....does.

 

While trying to cover all bases you make the issue far more complex that it needs to be. Let's keep it simply and start with the Roe v Wade decision.

There were two parts to the Roe v Wade decision. The first was the "originalist" decision based upon the "textualualism" and "intentionalism" of the authors of the Constitution and Amendments. This was straightforward because the "woman" was the only "person" with protected rights under the Constitution and based upon this originalist interpretation all abortion restrictions were struck down by the Supreme Court. The second part of Roe v Wade was the non-originalist and judicial activism of the Supreme Court based upon "pragmatism" and "natural rights" where the Court established the classification of the "potential person" with "potential rights" of the fetus at "viability" and allowed government to impose certain restrictions under the law. At no time did the "potential rights" of the "potential person" supersede the existing rights of the woman which is why the woman's physical and mental health always take precedent over the life of the fetus.

Viability of the fetus, as addressed in Roe v Wade generally refers to natural viability but we can make some allowances for the advancements in medical technology. Currently the 25th week establishes a 50:50 chance for survival of a premature delivery and medical professionals generally establish the 24th week as being where medical procedures can be used in an attempt to preserve the life of a pre-mature delivery. Prior to that the costs that soar prior to the 24th week cannot be justified based upon the slim possibility of saving the life of a pre-mature delivery.

The phase "premature delivery" is used for a reason because even the "potential rights" of the "potential person" of the fetus does not provide it with a right to be inside of the woman without the woman's consent but it can prevent the woman from using an unnecessary act of force to remove the fetus from the womb that results in the death of the fetus. Instead of an abortion at anytime during "viability" the procedure would be changed from an abortion to a surgical premature delivery of the fetus. "Surgical removal unharmed and intact" (i.e. surgical delivery of the fetus) would replace abortion once "viability" is established.

The issue of when "viability" is established is one that can be addressed from a "funding" standpoint. The woman cannot be held financial liable for the costs of the medical services or the future raising of the child assuming success in the saving of the life. Taxpayer dollars can be used fund the very expensive medical procedures associated with a premature birth based upon the "rights of the child" after birth but for that argument to be valid then taxpayer dollars should also be available to the woman based upon her right to have an abortion prior to viabilitymto fund an abortion. Half of the funding problem is solved but only based upon how much the taxpayers are willing to fund based upon the odds of survival of the premature delivery. As noted prior to the 24th week its a lot of dollars with only remote chances of success.

That's half of the problem because the second half of the problem is voluntary guardianship assuming the life of the premature delivery is preserved. Who's going to assume the financial liability of the "child" for the next 18 plus years? The number of those cases where society is going to fund the medical procedures is limited by the number of households willing to accept the child and that directly effects the "week" at which "viability" that includes more than just the saving of the life of the fetus but also of providing for it's growth to adulthood are of equal importance. Once again this is easily solved on a volunteer basis where people can place themselves on a waiting list and then either based upon date of sign-up or by lottery those on the waiting list will be assigned a :"child" that has survived the premature delivery. The voluntary guardian will not "select" the baby but instead the baby will be assigned to them to prevent "cherry-picking" from the process.

The entire problem is solved so that no more disputes arise.

 

This issue is resolved by replacing "abortion" with "surgical delivery" where the fetus is removed unharmed and intact from the woman's body. This obviously creates a "premature delivery" leaving survival up to the fetus/child and the medical professionals because the surgery causes no harm to the fetus (which is why it isn't an abortion).

 

Because its her uterus and she doesn't want to use it to grow a child. I think its wrong, but my beliefs stops where her uterus starts. Thats freedom. If you really cared about these lives, you can save a few by stepping up and offering to raise the child if she agrees to give birth. You are being disingenuous.

 

I see....so replace forcing an American citizen to use their body as YOU desire to forcing an American citizen to undergo dangerous and unnecessary surgery. How very kind of you.

 

You: ""I'd like to respond to some comments here and discuss something that came up in another thread ""


When ?


So Anti-Choicers like to post threads in the abortion forum but have so little facts that they quickly disappear...

 

Actually, we've had this conversation. Or @ least, I remember commenting that fetal viability will vary, as medical science advances. If we're willing to throw money, staffing, resources @ the problem, we can probably move the point of fetal viability to much closer to conception. There are issues there - how big a priority is this? How much is federal government, AMA, & all the other stakeholders willing to put into this effort?

That's not even considering surrogate women to carry the fetus to term, the possibility of using other placental mammals to carry the fetus, & someday artificial uteri. We live in exciting times, to be sure.

 

And even if this were possible WHY do it?

The cost will always be prohibitive. ...and to what end?

Yes, maybe wealthy women who can't carry to term would use this service but who else?

The people who propose this as some kind of solution are usually right wingers....I cannot believe they want to raise taxes especially such a staggering amount....(I certainly don't) .....but they never seem to think into the future, what the costs and consequences would be...

 

Just because it may be possible to replicate the environment in a mothers womb such that a zygote (single human cell at conception) can be taken from conception to birth does not magically turn a fetus into a living human.

To me it is then not a question of viability but whether or not the entity, at what ever stage it is at, reasonably qualifies as a living human.

Someone in a coma still has what is referred to as "significant brain function". When this ceases the person is clinically dead. The doctors pull the plug and the dirt nap begins despite the fact that the cells are still alive.

I am of the opinion that the fetus in the later stages qualifies as a living human when significant brain function exists - when the wiring of the brain get's completed and the lights turn on. Prior to this point the fetus does not qualify as a "living human" ... at least not by the coroners definition.

This is one definition. Folks can come up with others. One thing I have noticed is that anti aborts are never able to come up with a definition of what is human. They probably sense on some level that doing so will destroy their argument.

 

pictures speak one thousand words

 

"Pictures speak one thousand words"" while poster can't post one.


Did you have a point or is this another of your ridiculous biology lessons?

 

They want to discriminate against them based on size. Never mind that the average adult weighs 32 times the average newborn baby.

 

"" Discriminate based on size " WTF!

Oh YA! The second a fetus is conceived it looks just like the Gerber baby , only tiny!!

Do you REALLY believe that? Do you believe an 8 week fetus looks exactly like a 24 week fetus? or a one month old baby !!!




That's what you are saying......does that sound rational to you !???


In post 8 I suggested you read a biology book and learn about pregnancy, ..I see learning hasn't been your thing....

 

Kazenatsu,
The other relevant point of me posting the picture is to quell or quite the noise about embryos and fetuses not be human being and/or persons. I literally become physically ill when I read the postings of those who repeat the madness about embedded zygote, embryos, and the other stages that a baby goes through in utero. It is not like a zygote and embryo will suddenly develop into a squash or a cucumber. I personally believe that those who utter such insanities really do not respect human live. This comment will undoubtedly cause others t “report” it and I will either be sanctioned or banned. To me, it does not mater, as I told one of the administrators yesterday, there have been several times that I have read many things that I take offense to, but being that I am a man, I overlook such indignities.

 

A human fetus is human and no one has said anything different. No one has said it will grow into a squash.

A fetus is not legally a person with rights until it's born.


And your idea that a fetus should have rights above and beyond what other persons have is just not right....