You know, I find an interesting dichotomy in the pro-life/pro-choice argument.
When a child is wanted, we will spare absolutely no expense, and do everything we possibly can in order to try to save the life of that child. We're to the point now that we can have babies that survive being born at 21-22 weeks. Do those children face a huge uphill battle, and is it ridiculously expensive to make sure those children survive? Absolutely. Yet we don't see much argument for just allowing those children to die. So to answer the viability question, I believe that this puts the lower limit at about 21-22 weeks. These are recorded cases, in fact the record for the youngest child to survive is at 21 weeks 5 days, James Elgin Gill, born in 1987 in Canada.
Yet when a child is not wanted, some of the pro-choice folks argue that up until the moment the child is born, it should be legal to terminate the pregnancy. This is clearly the extreme, but is an argument I have personally heard made by pro-choice folks. Actually, that's not truly the extreme. I have occasionally heard the argument (again, personally, first-hand) that a baby isn't really "viable" even after it is born, as it is unable to care or feed itself. It is a very rare argument, true, but it is an argument that I have personally heard made, and was made to attempt to justify partial birth abortions.
So I guess the question I pose is this. (I tend to be a moral absolutist, believing that with very few, very rare exceptions, there is a moral *right* and a moral *wrong*.) Which viewpoint is correct? Are children a priceless asset, deserving any and every expenditure necessary to ensure their survival, or are children nothing more than biological material, fit to be disposed of as the mother sees fit until they are born?
And Mech, I think Fistful meant to type that pro-choicers tend to push the point of viability back, not pro-lifers.
