Taking Sides on Abortion Issue

Where did Gerber get his idea that science and law agree that a human fetus is not a human being until it becomes viable? Certainly he did not get it from Roe v. Wade (although he may have gotten it from a misinterpretation of that decision). As observed by the Roe court: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.”

The Roe court did not decide that a viable fetus is a human being and it did not decide that the nonviable product of human conception is not a human being. The court no more possesses the jurisdiction to decide such questions than it possesses the jurisdiction to decide whether life exists on Mars.

Gerber states that since a viable fetus is a human being the induced abortion of such a fetus “must” be labeled murder. If that is so, then in Roe v. Wade the court conferred upon doctors a right to in effect murder a viable fetus when necessary to preserve either the life or broadly defined physical or psychological health of its mother.

The following precept is quoted from Williams Obstetrics, 1985:

“Since World War II, and especially during the last two decades, our knowledge of fetal development, function and environment has increased remarkably. As an important consequence the status of the fetus has been elevated to that of a patient who should be given the same meticulous care by the physician that we long have given the pregnant woman.”

PHILIP A. RAFFERTY

Long Beach