http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-personhood.htm
Viability as a test for personhood
If pro-choice advocates reject conception as the first moment of personhood, then the question becomes: when do pro-choice advocates believe that personhood begins?
One of the best tests of personhood is viability, upon which the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade was based. Viability is defined as the ability to live outside the womb. It is based upon the broader logic that "a person is as a person does." In other words, people normally breathe on their own, circulate blood on their own, fight off most germs on their own and sustain normal cellular activity on their own. A fetus is able to achieve these functions once it reaches a weight of about 5 pounds. This usually occurs between the 7th and 8th month of pregnancy -- coincidentally, about the time that the baby has finished its brain and central nervous system. The extra womb time appears to be a biological courtesy.
Critics charge that a baby cannot survive outside the womb for long without a mother's feeding, care and protection. Certainly the child is a person by now, so how can viability be a test for personhood? This common objection is based upon a confusion of the terms viability and dependency. They are not at all the same thing, although both are needed for human survival. Viability is defined as an individual's ability to survive as a person. Dependency is defined as one's reliance upon society to survive as a person. Remember our broader definition that "a person is as a person does." The newborn baby breathes, circulates, perspires, digests, immunizes and sustains bodily and cellular functions just like a normal person. But it is also normal for people to depend on each other for food, shelter and survival, from the day they are conceived until the day they die.
An example might illustrate this point more clearly. When your car was on the factory assembly line, it was dependent upon the care and attention of the factory workers. But it was not yet a car, because it was only half-built and could not even go. Fresh from the assembly line, it could now be considered a full-fledged, fully operational automobile -- yet it would still require the care and attention of its owner, from filling the gas tank to conducting maintenance. Dependency and viability are both necessary for personal survival, yet in the end they are separate characteristics.
An element of gradualism must be accepted in determining viability, for there is no clear line over which a nonviable fetus suddenly becomes a viable baby. No premature fetus has survived delivery before the 7th month (at least without technology). The 8th month is a gray area, and bioethicists advocate erring well on the side of caution by defining these babies as persons. After the 8th month, they are clearly viable, and are full-fledged persons.
Critics point out that our advancing technology is saving premature babies at ever earlier ages, and therefore the age of viability is being pushed back. Indeed, one day it may be able to fertilize an egg in the laboratory and raise it to term completely outside the womb of the mother. All this technology, however, simply amounts to a surrogate womb. Viability is still defined as the ability to live outside the womb, whether that womb be real or artificial.
Critics may then charge that a person hooked up to a breathing machine is nonviable, and could be allowed to die as a nonperson. But our gradualism principle prevents this. If people are viable in every aspect of life except one or two, then a moral society should grant them the full rights of personhood.
Another criticism is the example of the accident victim who needs massive life support just to survive. They may fully recover in six months, but at the moment none of their systems are working, and without massive intervention they would die. Like the fetus, they are guaranteed to wake up eventually, and letting them die seems certainly wrong. In the case of the accident victim, it is wrong, because there is a tangible victim involved: say, the 30-year old Susan, who had a lifetime of experiences and all the characteristics of personhood. But the fetus had none of these traits to begin with, and, absent a person, there can be no victim. It is the difference between repairing a vase of great sentimental value and deciding not to make one from scratch on the pottery wheel. No harm is done to a future vase by removing the clay from the wheel.
This is only the beginning of the debate on personhood, and, if history is a reliable guide, the debate should continue to evolve.
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