{"id":227657,"date":"2020-07-21T18:37:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T23:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=227657"},"modified":"2020-07-21T12:32:14","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T17:32:14","slug":"life-legal-supreme-court-demolishing-roe-viability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/life-legal-supreme-court-demolishing-roe-viability\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Legal files Supreme Court brief demolishing Roe\u2019s viability standard"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/lifelegaldefensefoundation.org\/2020\/07\/20\/life-legal-files-scotus-brief-demolishing-roes-viability-standard\/?fbclid=IwAR1duu6NZEIYciaoH1A4HJi2Pv9J5JiFP7l18InJsJnut3xV1B8lCTx7pjE\">Life Legal<\/a>)\u00a0Life Legal filed an important <a href=\"https:\/\/lifelegaldefensefoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Dobbs-v.-JWHO-AC-LLDF-20200720.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">amicus brief<\/a> today in <em>Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization<\/em> in support of Mississippi\u2019s \u201cGestational Age Act,\u201d which prohibits abortion after 15 weeks. We filed the brief on behalf of Dr. Robin Pierucci, a neonatologist and bioethicist who is a nationally recognized expert in care for \u201cmicro-preemies,\u201d who are very young premature babies born during the second trimester of pregnancy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our brief is an attack on the unworkable \u201cviability\u201d standard adopted by the Supreme Court in <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em> and affirmed in <em>Planned Parenthood v. Casey<\/em>, which has cost the lives of millions of babies.<\/strong> These cases rely on a highly subjective determination of a baby\u2019s \u201ccapability of <em>meaningful<\/em> life outside the mother\u2019s womb.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But who is to say which life has meaning? The Court? The State? The abortionist?<\/p>\n<p>Instead, we urge the Court to look to its own ruling in <em>Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health<\/em>, where it found that a state does not have to make judgments about the \u201cquality\u201d of an individual\u2019s life but can \u201cassert an unqualified interest\u201d in protecting human life.\u00a0 The Cruzan case involved a disabled young woman whose parents wanted to remove her feeding tube. The Court did not accept the parent\u2019s argument that their daughter\u2019s lack of a sufficient \u201cquality of life\u201d was a reason to kill her and held that a higher standard of evidence was required before someone could make the irreversible decision to end the life of a person who cannot communicate his or her wishes. In so doing, the Court affirmed the state\u2019s interest in protecting human life, without regard to the perceived worth of that life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ:\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/son-born-viability-hospital-save\/\">My son was born three days before \u2018viability.\u2019 The hospital didn\u2019t try to save him.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Our brief also takes issue with the holdings in Roe and Casey that try to define viability as a particular point in time at which a baby is capable of surviving apart from its mother. Life Legal was recently contacted by several parents whose premature babies were denied life-saving care, even though the parents begged doctors to save them. We filed complaints with the Department of Health and Human Services on their behalf and then provided HHS with the latest research in second trimester preemies and suggestions for further action to protect babies. <a href=\"https:\/\/lifelegaldefensefoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Life-Legal-Age-Discrimination-and-Periviable-Birth.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">You can read our HHS pape<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/lifelegaldefensefoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Life-Legal-Age-Discrimination-and-Periviable-Birth.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">r<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/lifelegaldefensefoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Life-Legal-Age-Discrimination-and-Periviable-Birth.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Studies have demonstrated that a baby\u2019s survivability does not depend only on reaching a specific gestational age, but on the medical care that is available and <strong>especially on the attitudes of physicians and hospitals regarding quality of life and disability.<\/strong> For example, Providence Women and Children\u2019s Services of Oregon categorically denies medical care for babies before at 22 weeks or earlier, regardless of the parents\u2019 wishes. Not surprisingly, its survival rate for those babies is 0%, whereas the survival rate for 22-week babies is as high as 60% in other hospitals.<\/p>\n<p>Another Supreme Court case, <em>Colautti v. Franklin<\/em>, held that the <em>abortionist <\/em>should determine whether a baby is viable. This is absurd. <strong>Abortionists have a financial\u2014and often philosophical\u2014interest in pushing the age of viability as far out as possible. <\/strong>Also, to the extent that they have any specialized training at all\u2014and most have none\u2014it is in obstetrics, not neonatology. In some states, like California, abortionists do not even have to hold a physician\u2019s license.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven Justice Robert\u2019s opinion in the recent June Medical Services case that relied so heavily on Robert\u2019s blind allegiance to Supreme Court precedence (stare decisis), we believe it is critical to present sound legal arguments as to why the Court\u2019s holdings regarding viability in Roe, Casey, and Colautti are not valid and are should long ago have been overturned,\u201d noted Life Legal Executive Director Alexandra Snyder. <strong>\u201cThe current viability framework only works for the abortion industry. It certainly doesn\u2019t work for unborn children and states trying to protect them.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s Note: This article was published at <a href=\"https:\/\/lifelegaldefensefoundation.org\/2020\/07\/20\/life-legal-files-scotus-brief-demolishing-roes-viability-standard\/?fbclid=IwAR1duu6NZEIYciaoH1A4HJi2Pv9J5JiFP7l18InJsJnut3xV1B8lCTx7pjE\">Life Legal<\/a> and is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveactionnewsonline\/\">\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Life Legal)\u00a0Life Legal filed an important amicus brief today in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization in support of Mississippi\u2019s \u201cGestational Age Act,\u201d which prohibits abortion after 15 weeks. We filed the brief on behalf of Dr. Robin Pierucci, a neonatologist and bioethicist who is a nationally recognized expert in care for \u201cmicro-preemies,\u201d who are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":193886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,4,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Life Legal files Supreme Court brief demolishing Roe\u2019s viability standard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Life Legal filed an amicus brief today in Dobbs v. 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