Summit medical director: fetal viability not discussed..."None are viable"

From today's Birmingham News:

In a detailed report on Summit released Friday, Summit's medical director is quoted discussing the fetal viability testing with a state investigator.

"When asked about the viability of the fetus, she responded, `I guess we don't technically discuss it; none are viable,'" according to the report.

That's a bald-faced lie, of course; I'm no expert, but I'd be willing to bet that 6 pounds 4 ounces is pretty "viable" in anyone's book. Either way, though, it wouldn't make much difference, at least as far as the law is concerned. For all practical purposes, Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, make abortion on demand legal throughout pregnancy, regardless the viability of the fetus. If Summit would only have filled out its paperwork correctly and followed the right procedures, this tragic episode would never have made headlines.

Until Roe and Doe are overturned, there's little that Alabama or any other state can do to stop abortion on demand up to the moment of birth. Ramesh Ponnuru discusses this his new book, Party of Death, which I skimmed through at the bookstore earlier this weekend. In Chapter One, he discusses the radicalism of Roe, elaborating on a point he made in this NRO article:

The true radicalism of Roe is still not sufficiently appreciated. Many educated people believe that Roe legalized abortion only in the first trimester, allowing it to be restricted in the second and banned in the third. In fact, Doe v. Bolton, handed down the same day as Roe, took back those apparent concessions. Abortions had to be allowed at all stages of pregnancy whenever continued pregnancy was said to jeopardize a woman's "physical, emotional, psychological, [or] familial" health.

Many Americans are unaware of just how far the Supreme Court went in Roe. It's sad that it takes a tragedy like the one last week in Birmingham to make us ask.