Because it is quite viable for a premature born baby to survive after 7 months gestation without any aid.
Again, there are many 7th month old babies that will not survive outside the womb (or without machine assistance). The only reason why young foetuses do not survive is because of lung development. Is someone on a heart and lung machine alive or not?
As far as I know, there is no case of a 3 month old gestated foetus surviving outside the womb, even with the miracles the doctors can perform today.
Again, the abortion limit is not 3 months. There are many cases of babies surviving *before* the US abortion date (24-26 weeks), with some even surviving as young as 21 weeks.
It has been mandated by law that a 7 month shall not be aborted because it is viable outside the womb, and therefore by a scientific definition, it is a life.
This is circular reasoning. Because someone is mandated by law, it is not a scientific definition. A scientific definition would be based on factors such as consciousness, etc It is a “legal” definition that a foetus at that stage isn’t a life.
The viability criterion does not hold up to any other circumstances. There are many cases where babies and adults are dependent on machine assistance for life, yet they are not treated as “non-viable” (i.e. non-human). The same with babies after the “cut-off” date – many of them are not viable, yet they are treated as alive.
Even the Supreme Court judge stated that this date is arbitrary. Here is what he said:
You will observe that I have concluded that the end of the first trimester is critical. This is arbitrary, but perhaps any other selected point, such as quickening or viability, is equally arbitrary
Can't you even acknowledge the difference between a gestation period of something that is 3 months old and something that is 7 months old ?
Yes, just as I can acknowledge the difference between the age of an old person or a child. (In roman times children had less rights than adults can could have been killed by the head of the household).
Fine, if you have such an objection to "the taking of a life", I assume you must also be a vegetarian, and that you have never killed a cockroach or swatted a fly ? Because that is plainly "murder" by your definition.
I have an objection to taking the life of a human being.
At the end of the day, when staying within what is the current "laws" regarding abortion, it is the choice of the mother, not the state, not the church, no one else.
Why can’t a mother then abort a child at 8 months? Why does the evil state prevent her?
It is cool with you that the father doesn’t have any say in his unborn child?
As I again said, the current immoral laws may be laws – but it doesn’t make them any less immoral than the multitude of immoral laws there were in the past. Abortion laws are the ultimate law for the hedonistic and self-centered generation Y.