The lede:
The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.Here is the Abstract of the article:
Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.Here is the link to the article itself.
While the article doesn't go to the Dr Peter Singer two year rule, it does state:
It might start having expectations and develop a minimum level of self-awareness at a very early state, but not in the first days or few weeks after birth.So Sanctuary for a new born child is at least days and possibly weeks after birth. This is, it seems to me, a new concept of the idea of when life begins.
The authors do bring up the "worthless eater" argument of the German Government in the late 1930s and the concept of Life Unworthy of Life.
The twist is that this article has elicited some abusive comments, which is addressed in the second paragraph of the newspaper article:
The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article's authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.I am confused as to who are the fanatics.
This article, in a professional journal, gives a new twist to the American debate started by George Stephanopolous.
Giving the last word to Professor Althouse:
I think this works as a "Modest Proposal"-type satire that is really a critique of abortion.Regards — Cliff
When a society decides that life is simply an option to be exercised unilaterally by others, IMHO, that society has reached the ultimate in moral and ethical depravity. That a parent today is empowered to terminate an offspring simply because that offspring isn't what that parent wanted or was hoping for....or worse....is simply inconvenient....places humanity on the same philosophical, moral, and affective level as animals and certain kinds of microbial life.
ReplyDeleteThe radicals are anyone who doesn't take up the unholy crusade of the liberal zeitgeist.....you are either with them.....or against them in which case..you have no right to speak up.....or.....live.
I would suggest that the only humans who could and perhaps should be disposed of before their time are the folks who decided that humans must proved with this arcane process that they are not a robot......as well as those who have declared Google war on the right to some modicum of privacy on the Web.....
But that is merely fanciful thought.
I think these ethicists suffer from Reactive Attachment Disorder.
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