Josie Luetke:
Interim writer, Josie Luetke, Talk Turkey
Viability has long been the line in the sand drawn by many abortion apologists so that they can tell themselves they aren’t monsters who are okay with killing – like — real babies.
Before it was overturned, Roe v. Wade, for instance, permitted states to prohibit abortion only after fetal viability, describing it as “the ‘compelling’ point” of “the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life” (although there’s nothing “potential” about it).
Planned Parenthood v. Casey affirmed that “viability marks the earliest point at which the State’s interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions.”
While his stance has fluctuated, new U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said, “I support the emerging consensus that abortion should be unrestricted up until a certain point. I believe that point should be when a baby is viable outside the womb.”
Senior Advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, too said last year (to enthusiastic applause), “If a baby can survive outside the womb, it cannot be aborted . . . At that point, it’s not abortion—it is murder.”
There isn’t actually a specific, identifiable threshold for viability, which is, as Roe describes, when a fetus is “potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid.”
In 1973, in Roe, the Supreme Court of the United States put it somewhere between 24-28 weeks, but with advances in medical technology, it could be even earlier, as it’s not currently uncommon for babies born at 22- or 23- weeks’ gestation to survive. The youngest premature baby to survive was born in 2020 at 21 weeks and one day gestation.
Mind you—that was in the United States, with cutting-edge neonatal care. In poorer countries, viability would be later on, just due to the state of their health care systems and lack of resources.
So, is a 23-week-old fetus deserving of protection in the United States then, but not in a developing nation? Unless, that is, the parents had the means to fly elsewhere, in which case their preborn child could be viable?
Is a 23-week-old fetus deserving of protection now in 2025, but not back in 1973?
It seems odd for a moral (and sometimes legal) standard to be so arbitrary.
If artificial wombs were to be developed, rendering every zygote, embryo, and fetus viable, would “viability” proponents then forfeit their opposition to abortion completely? Would what was once a “right” become verboten?
More to the point, however—why does it matter when a baby could, hypothetically, survive ex utero?
And I very intentionally use the word “hypothetically.” As Roe puts it, “the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb.”
“Presumably,” “potentially” — because we don’t actually want to test it, right?
Except in cases of medical necessity, we don’t want moms deciding to induce labour prematurely—whether they’re tired of being pregnant or just eager to meet their baby face-to-face. That would be reckless, callous, insane, and a host of other adjectives, because even if the baby survives, they’d be at risk of physical and developmental delays. It’s possible that a mother who did that could even be criminally charged.
Even pro-choicers would agree that, barring an abortion, come this murky attainment of viability, a woman will still have to grit her teeth through around four more months of pregnancy.
So, again, I return to the question: What does it matter if the fetus becomes old enough, in a specific time, place, and set of circumstances, to theoretically survive outside the womb? What’s the significance of this abstract milestone if the baby is going to go on depending on his or her mom anyway, because the alternative of premature delivery was never actually being proposed or entertained by anyone?
Furthermore (and now you know it’s getting serious), this dependence only increases a mother’s responsibility towards her child; it doesn’t alleviate or remove it. In almost any other instance, we recognize dependence and vulnerability—be it in children, the elderly, the sick, or the disabled—as heightening our duty of care and the heinousness of any violence directed towards such populations.
Elijah Thompson, who goes by the social media handle “Dank Pro-Life Memes,” tweeted in 2019, “When (someone) tells me ‘I am pro-choice because the fetus is not viable’, I respond, ‘I’m pro-life for the same reason.” He attributes the sentiment to Catholic apologist Trent Horn, adding from him: “If you take the unborn child out of the womb, it kills the child, and I don’t think we should put human beings in places where they aren’t ‘viable’, or places that would kill them.”
Indeed, if you smuggled an extremely premature baby outside of the hospital, that would surely kill him or her. You take a human being of any age into an environment we’re not naturally equipped to survive in—outer space or the deep sea—and they’re not necessarily going to be “viable” either. Would it not still be murder to expel an astronaut from the International Space Station, or a diver from a submarine, before they’re ready?
The natural environment of the preborn child is the womb. This isn’t a moral failure of theirs any more than a need for oxygen is a moral failure of the astronaut or diver. It’s simply how we’re made as humans.
Viability might sound like an attractive and reasonable compromise at first glance, one that could provide state restrictions on abortion at this stage “both logical and biological justifications,” as Roe said. Its potential appeal collapses under the briefest scrutiny, however, and it is to my perpetual disappointment that past SCOTUS justices and those currently in the US administration are not smart enough to know better or decent enough to care.
