Quick News Roundup 07/16/10
Spanish News: As previously reported, Spanish law was recently modified to allow unrestricted access to abortions within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. This “right” was also extended to 16 and 17 year old girls without requiring parental consent, parental notification however is required. The more conservative Popular Party had tried to seek a court ordered injunction on the legislation in the Spanish Constitutional Court while they sought an appeal. On Wednesday the court decided not to suspend the new law while hearing the appeals.
Discussion Topic: NICU’s are neo-natal intensive care units. My son was in one for 28 days. In fact, as I pointed out in a comment on the post yesterday, my son was in the NICU that was profiled on discovery health yesterday. Ryan was born 10 weeks early, gestationally he was around 30 weeks old. Currently – he’s 14 months old, in fine health, growing every day and pulling himself up onto furniture. Watching what they can do to save these babies is miraculous and makes me wonder – when will the “when the fetus is able to survive outside the womb” argument for abortion cutoff going to end? Science is getting better every single day and eventually it may get to the point where any premature baby can be saved outside the womb. At that point – the “point of viability” argument ceases to be valid.
Matthew Newman is happily married, a Christian, a new Dad, a pro-life Republican, a New York expatriate, and an environmental engineer in disguise who also blogs at Old Line Elephant
Viability is such a dirty word to me sometimes.
Oh, and I thought the Discovery Health special was awesome.
For a surviving premie, your son was actually fairly old– the youngest was born at just under 22 weeks!
The viability argument makes no sense whatsoever to me. For one thing, a child's viability depends largely on geography. A 26-week-old baby may be viable if born in a major U.S. city– but if Mom decides to take a vacation to Mexico, the baby becomes not viable again? It's insane.