If you haven't yet listened to the SCOTUS arguments concerning Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban, I highly recommend that you do so. Some fascinating statements were made by justices and attorneys on both sides of the aisle, but pro-choice lawyer Julie Rikelman's claim concerning viability and the beginning of life uniquely piqued my interest. She said:
[T]he viability line makes sense given the protection for liberty because it comes from the woman's liberty interest in resisting state control of her body. And once the court recognizes that interest, it does need to draw a line, as it does in many other constitutional contexts, like the fourth and fifth amendment. And the viability line, as I mentioned, makes sense because it focuses on the fetus's ability to survive separately, which is an appropriate legal line because it's objectively verifiable and doesn't delve into philosophical questions about when life begins.
A couple of thoughts here:
First, Rikelman claims that viability is "objectively verifiable." According to Law Insider, the term objectively verifiable means "capable of being proven by facts independent of personal feelings, beliefs, opinions or interpretations." However, the viability line doesn't appear to be this clear-cut because it's a predictive model. There isn't some cosmic viability number out there or ingrained in the child's genetic code. Rather, viability attempts to answer the question of how early a child can be born and still survive. The answer to this question varies from case to case based on medical technology and other factors, and the answer continues to change with medical advances. In addition, viability predictions aren't always correct, as the case of Richard Hutchinson clearly demonstrates.
Second, contrary to what Rikelman implies, the beginning of life is indeed objectively verifiable. The question of when life begins is primarily a scientific question rather than a philosophical one, and there is virtually no disagreement among embryologists on this point. At the moment of conception, sperm and egg cease to exist, and in their place emerges a distinct and complete (albeit immature) human being. This new and tiny person comes equipped with his/her own unique genetic code -- their own biological program -- that will faithfully guide their growth and development all the way to maturity, provided their life is not cut short.
Third, while Rikelman claims that the court can avoid philosophical questions by embracing the viability line, this simply isn't true. Establishing viability as the decisive point where a child can no longer be aborted on demand means assigning primary moral significance to the baby's ability to survive outside the womb. That's not a fact of science, but rather a philosophical position that Rikelman has chosen to adopt. So claiming that one can hold to the viability line and thereby avoid philosophical questions is simply incorrect.
In conclusion, the beginning of life is just as "objectively verifiable" and scientific as any viability metric, if not more so. And embracing viability as the beginning of human rights does not avoid delving into philosophy. It involves an ethical conclusion not found in science but adopted by the pro-choice advocate. Like any ethical theory, its supporters must be willing to field objections and defend their philosophical position. To simply claim that the viability line avoids philosophy altogether is disingenuous. Bad philosophy it may be, but philosophy it most certainly is.
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