Lungs that float and lungs that don't

Cheers follow jeers for the New York Times, which has given itself a well deserved public spanking for misreporting the 30-year sentence of an El Salvador woman as punishment for an abortion when in fact she had strangled her full-term newborn after its lungs had filled with air:

THE cover story on abortion in El Salvador in The New York Times Magazine on April 9 contained prominent references to an attention-grabbing fact. “A few” women, the first paragraph indicated, were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That reference included a young woman named Carmen Climaco. The article concluded with a dramatic account of how Ms. Climaco received the sentence after her pregnancy had been aborted after 18 weeks.

It turns out, however, that trial testimony convinced a court in 2002 that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy had resulted in a full-term live birth, and that she had strangled the “recently born.” . . .

The physician who had performed the autopsy on the “recently born” testified that it represented a “full-term” birth, which he defined as a pregnancy with a duration of “between 38 and 42 weeks,” the ruling noted. In adopting those conclusions, the court said of another autopsy finding: “Given that the lungs floated when submerged in water, also indicating that the recently-born was breathing at birth, this confirms that we are dealing with an independent life.” (Via Hot Air)

So we have a distinction between lungs that float and lungs that don't. Now, then, what's the difference?

Comments

[Jake]

... but if the lungs float they know that it's the water rejecting the impure, un-godly lungs of newborn witches, so she's innocent and the lungs must be burnt at the stake.