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From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Re: Legality of Late Abortions (Roe V. Wade)
Message-ID: <1035@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 14:01:22 EST
Article-I.D.: bunker.1035
Posted: Mon Nov  4 14:01:22 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 22:06:49 EST
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> > As a result of Roe v. Wade, abortion is legal at any time before
> > delivery.  Quoting from _The Least of These_, by Curt Young:
> >            ...
> >*        3. During the last months of pregnancy, when the baby is
> >*           clearly able to survive outside the womb -- is viable --
> >            if given the best medical treatment available, the Court
> >            ruled that a state "may, if it chooses, regulate, and
> >            even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary,
> >            in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation
> >            of the life or the health of the mother." [Roe v. Wade,
> >            410 US 113 at 164-65]
> > [Note the material indirectly quoted from the Court's decision.] [SAMUELSON]
> 
> And note the asterisked lines above.  Even anti-abortionists understand
> the notion of viability of the fetus, when it becomes viable, and what
> viability means in terms of autonomous existence and rights as a human being.
> [ROSEN]

I.e., even pro-life advocates understand what the law currently says.
Is the law always right?

My point was that third trimester abortions are in general legal, despite
what several pro-abortionists have said (if I recall correctly, you are
among those).  Viability, according to Roe v. Wade, doesn't mean a thing
in terms of the rights of the fetus.

> (Odd that NO ONE responded to my article about the Arizona Supreme Court, and
> the way their wording and use of the word "viable" makes clear the point of
> demarcation of "lifehood" in terms of being a full fledged human being.  Not
> even Matt Rosenblatt...)

The demarcation of "lifehood" was dismissed as irrelevant by the U.S.
Supreme Court.  The majority opinion stated that they "need not answer
the difficult question of when life begins."  The Court couldn't answer
that question and still reach the conclusion they wanted to reach.
If, for example, they had said that the fetus becomes a human being when
it is viable, they would have had to conclude that its life was protected
by the Constitution, and thus rule that abortion of a viable infant was
unconstitutional.

Gary Samuelson