The viability myth

By Tom Quiner

I have never met a single, viable person in my life.

Another word for viable is survivable. It’s a word worth dwelling on.

Some advocates of human abortion maintain that the preborn are not entitled to human rights until they are viable, which they reach at about their 23rd week of human life in their mother’s womb.

Everyone I’ve ever met started their human life in their mother’s womb, and weren’t “viable” for a number of weeks. They are the same person now as then, only at a different stage in their development.

Every person I’ve ever known is not viable without food. The only difference between them now and when they were in their mother’s womb was the delivery method for their nourishment.

I know diabetics who are not viable without their insulin.

My friend, Bob, has diseased kidneys. He is not viable without dialysis.

Each of us shares something in common: human dignity. We do not lose that dignity simply because we require nourishment through an umbilical cord, just as a person in a coma doesn’t lose hers because she’s on a feeding tube.

Our fellow human beings who are dependent on others for their survival are not any less human. In fact, it is their very need that allows each of us to be more human, more fully alive, by giving of ourselves sacrificially in service to our fellow man.

The baby in the womb is a human being with unique DNA. He or she is one-of-kind. He or she is not part of the mother’s body, they simply dwell there for a number of months. As philosopher Dr. Peter Kreeft explains:

“if the fetus is a part of the mother, then the parts of the fetus must be parts of the mother. But in that case, every pregnant woman has four eyes and four feet, and half of all pregnant women have penises!”

Don’t buy into the viability myth. Human dignity is at stake.