features@ihuxf.UUCP (aMAZon) (09/10/85)
Matt Rosenblatt writes: > If Mr. Rosen is saying either that the seven-month fetus cannot be removed at > seven months and be an autonomous human being, he is wrong. Before the days > of sophisticated neonatal life-support equipment and techniques, premature > babies of seven months' gestation did survive -- one of them works right > here in my laboratory. I was a 7-month preemie in 1955; I was stuck in an incubator for 33 days after my birth, and I was fortunate that I did not go bline (rumor has it that 55 was a bad year for blindness in preemies). Incubators are not as "high tech" as what's available for preemies now! If I'd have been asked, I would have preferred to go home with my mother and taken my chances at survival. Of course, no one asked. -- aMAZon @ AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL; ihnp4!ihuxf!features