Part 2: If Not Viability, Then What?

What It Covers

Legal scholars propose alternatives to Roe's viability line after Dobbs decision, exploring how abortion law could center pregnant people's experiences rather than fixed gestational timelines, drawing from personal pregnancy loss stories.

Key Questions Answered

• •Personhood Movement Strategy: Anti-abortion advocates argue life begins at conception using IVF technology as evidence that embryos in petri dishes are viable, pushing constitutional rights from conception to ban all abortions through amicus briefs.
• •Tort Law Framework: Legal scholars Jill Lenz and Greer Donnelly propose using personal injury law principles where pregnant people define their own fetal value to courts based on individual circumstances, rather than government-imposed gestational timelines determining abortion access.
• •Provider Perspective Shift: Doctor Shelly Sella, one of four U.S. providers offering third-trimester abortions, asks patients how they describe their pregnancy and adopts their language, acknowledging emotional complexity while maintaining abortion rights without denying the reality of the work.
• •Parental Rights Approach: Framing abortion as a parental decision-making right allows recognition of fetal value without granting constitutional personhood, similar to how parents make medical decisions for children after birth, potentially protecting abortion access while acknowledging pregnancy loss grief.