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To: bjorn14; mwilli20
Viability is an irrelevant concept, since every healthy living being is viable in its proper environment, and unviable apart from it. Viability is thus a measure of the environment, not of the living being.

A healthy 30 year old man is viable for a couple of weeks confined to his home, unviable for a couple of weeks confined in a snowdrift. An astronaut in a space walk is viable in his spacesuit, unviable without it. An unborn baby is viable in the uterus of a healthy mom, but unviable if the uterus is cancerous; and so forth.

In fact, it would make much more sense if the viability argument were deployed in the opposite direction. It ought to be illegal to expel a baby from the womb if he or she is too young to live outside it; and at the point where the baby can live outside the uterus without risk to its health, the pregnancy can be gently terminated with a view to preserving both mother's and baby's well-being.

This acceptable termination of pregnancy ordinarily happens at around 40 weeks gestation, and is called childbirth.

12 posted on 08/08/2011 1:51:52 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Just the fact,s ma'am, just the facts.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o; bjorn14; mwilli20

Viability has never been a good concept to base policy. As you’ve pointed out, it’s neither timeless nor placeless. A good ruling is both timeless and placeless, e.g., Thou Shalt Not Kill.


17 posted on 08/08/2011 2:30:26 PM PDT by libertylover (The problem with Obama is not that his skin is too black, it's that his ideas are too RED.)
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