General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Message auto-removed [View all]Daemonaquila
(1,712 posts)First, extraordinary measures that might add a few percentage points of survivability while all the developmental problems remain don't amount to squat in this argument. The real question is what would happen to a fetus in the natural course of things, with relatively basic support, not exotic multimillion dollar interventions. When we talk about technological innovation, we're talking about exotic and extremely expensive means to make a body do something other than what it has been biologically engineered to do. That basic biology is at the heart of the definition.
Second, let's take a silly trip to the future where thanks to artificial wombs, cutting edge imaging, and virtually risk-free microsurgery are commonplace. When a woman misses a period, it's easy as can be to detect that little clump of cells, pop it out without damage, risk, pain, or cost to the mother, and transplant it into an in vitro environment that will cook it up into a healthy baby 8 months or so later, whereupon it will be adopted by one of a long line of waiting prospective parents. I'll still say it's the woman's right to decide what happens to that fetus, and whether she should be required to subject herself to the risk-free, pain-free, cost-free procedure. There is no moral or ethical reason, no "value," to assume that saving that fetus for someone that wants it is preferable to terminating it. In fact, it's just the opposite - negative population growth is the ethical choice for our world.
The only reason that 24 weeks has any traction at all with anyone who has thought it through, is that that's the point where if the fetus fell out on its own, it might have a significant chance of surviving and maturing into a healthy human. At that point it's just a fair play argument -
"Meh, if it lives it lives, and if it dies it dies, but no point in going out and killing it if it would otherwise have made it after all that effort."