Personhood: Proving the Significance of the Born-Alive Rule with Reference to Medical Knowledge of Foetal Viability (original) (raw)

In 2010, in South Africa, an academic publication called for the common law born-alive rule to be substituted by a definition of personhood that includes an unborn but viable foetus. It was the author’s submission that foetal viability occurs at 24 weeks’ gestation. This assertion represents a wider legal tendency to attribute foetal survivability to a particular gestational week. An ambiguous legal concept of foetal viability has developed because different gestational weeks (which are said to represent the point of viability) are being applied in different areas of law. This is problematic because it is not clear when the legal implications of personhood should benefit the unborn. Consequently, this article turns to medical knowledge and looks at the clinical definition of foetal viability in order to determine if foetal viability can be legitimately applied in law for purposes of extending personhood. Research indicates that determining the viability of a foetus requires an indiv...