How interesting is it that abortion was a non-issue in the nineteenth century? There were no policies or debates concerning abortion. However, today, abortion is one of the most divisive and controversial issues in the U.S. (Rose 1). Over the years, many scholars have made their claims on whether abortion should be legal or illegal. Currently, it is legal to perform an abortion in the U.S. up to when a fetus becomes viable, which means that it can survive outside it mother’s womb. After a fetus is viable, abortion can only be allowed for health concerns for the mother (Alters, 11). However, different states have different regulations concerning abortion; for example, Alabama recently abolished all forms of abortion except for when the mother’s life is in danger (Sietstra, par 1). The issue of legalization of abortion is very controversial and one that keeps changing. Moreover, technology and medical practices concerning abortion keep advancing with time. The methods of performing abortions keep improving; for example, abortions pills that do not require a doctor’s supervision are now coming into play. One might therefore wonder what the future of abortion will be. In the future, technological and medical advancements will lead to more abortion bans and controls by the government, to protect the lives of the unborn babies, since fetus viability and incubation will happen at very young ages.
Future advancements in technology and medicine will make the government place bans and stricter laws on abortion by pushing back the period in which a fetus becomes viable. In the decision made in the Roe vs. Wade case, women in the U.S. have a right to abortion up until when the fetus is deemed viable; after that, they can only do an abortion for health reasons such as saving the life of the mother or her mental health (Alters, 11). Generally, a fetus becomes viable from twenty-four weeks onwards, give or take (Rose, 145). However, with future advancement in medicine and technology, fetal viability could be pushed back to a period earlier than that. For instance, the earliest recorded period of fetal viability was at twenty-one weeks and four days (May par 4). With improved technology, the organ maturity of a fetus, one of the main determinants of fetal viability, can be identified and analyzed even earlier during pregnancy. As a result, the period of fetal viability will reduce from twenty-four weeks, meaning a shorter period in which an abortion can happen, and thus a restriction on abortion after this period. Closely related to the idea of fetal viability is fetal incubation, which will also affect abortion laws in the future.
Better technology and medicine in the future would make the government place stricter controls on abortion by enabling fetal incubation at an even younger age than it is now. Currently, the fetal incubation age is similar to the fetal viability age that averages at 24 weeks (Rose, 145). In “U.S. Supreme Court decisions,” the second chapter of “Abortion: An Eternal Social and Moral Issue,” Alters asserts that in the third trimester when a fetus is able to survive outside the womb, the government through the different states can regulate or even illegalize abortion to safeguard the potential life of the fetus (11). In the future, new technology and trends in medicine will enable the incubation of fetuses from as young as eighteen weeks and even less (Brown par 11). The following quote from a medical journal on the recent advances in neonatology and what to expect in the future shows proof how existing technology already aids in examining fetuses and neonates with hope for improvement in the future:
Neonatal medicine continues to make rapid progress. Babies born at 24 weeks of gestation now have a better than evens chance of survival, a remarkable improvement compared to even a decade ago. The combination of antenatal steroids and postnatal surfactant has significantly reduced mortality and the risk of intracranial haemorrhage. Artificial ventilators have become more and more sophisticated and the role of high frequency oscillation (HFOV) as rescue treatment is now established. (Rennie, Bokhari F1)
In the future, it will, therefore, be possible to place fetuses under incubation while they are just a few weeks old. As a result, the government or the different states would be within their rights to claim a vested interest in the potential life of a fetus in such a way that a woman who was to undergo abortion might terminate her pregnancy, but the fetus would undergo incubation until it is mature.
An excellent example of how the idea of fetal viability and incubation will work together in the future resulting in more bans on abortion is considering the breakthrough that scientist made in 2017 and what it holds for the future. In an experiment, eight premat
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