Quote:
Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
If anything had been invented that could keep fetuses alive before 24 weeks or so, I'd probably have heard of it (and we'll leave out the severe debility common in most of those that do survive from that early).
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Regardless of whether you have heard of it or not, there are infants as young as 22 weeks that have survived. In terms of birth weight, infants below 500 grms (about 1 pound) have survived.
What is your point about premies having severe disabilities? Is it somehow a justification for abortion or were you just throwing that out there for no reason. Many full term infants have severe disabilities, too. Whether to withhold medical treatment isn't dependant on the gestational age. It is dependant on the prognosis for survival and morbidity. Some adults should be allowed to die, too.
New developments occur everyday and the limits of viability are being pushed lower with each advance. Since the development of ECMO and the use antenatal steroids to mature lung function and the use of nitric oxide to prevent oxygen toxicity, the morbidity is far less than you seem to be implying. For ECMO, the incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders is 15-20%, which is far lower than you seem to be implying.
Regardless, whether an "entity" (not my words) is a human being or not does not depend on external factors like technology. Whether an entity is a human being or not is intrinsic to the entity itself.
