Killing of new borns allowed, they have no right to life

[Doozer]

By Stephen Adams in London

Thursday March 01 2012
PARENTS should be allowed to have newborn babies killed as it is no different from abortion, medical ethics experts linked to*Oxford University
*have argued.
Newborns are not "actual persons" and do not have a "moral right to life", they say. Parents should be able to have a baby killed if it turns out to be disabled, or for any other reason that would allow an abortion, they add in an article in the 'Journal of Medical Ethics'.
The authors had received death threats following its publication, said the journal's editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, who is the director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.
He said that those who had made abusive and threatening responses were "fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society".
The article, entitled 'After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?', was written by Dr Alberto Giubilini and Dr Francesca Minerva.
They argued: "The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a foetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual."
They explained: "Both a foetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a 'person' in the sense of 'subject of a moral right to life'.
"We take 'person' to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her."
The authors concluded 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".
They also argued that parents should be able to have a baby killed if it turned out to be disabled when born.
They added, as an example, that many cases of*Down Syndrome
*were not identified by pre-natal testing.
"To bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care," they wrote.
Justifiable
They did not argue that some baby killings were more justifiable than others, but that morally they were no different from abortion as already practised.
Defending the decision to publish the article, Prof Savulescu said that arguments in favour of infanticide were "largely not new" and his journal was not to "promote some one moral view.
It is to present "well-reasoned argument based on widely accepted premises".
He said the journal would consider publishing an article arguing that, if there was no moral difference between abortion and killing newborns, then abortion too should be illegal. (© Daily Telegraph, London)
- Stephen Adams in London



Discuss

[mer]

killing a baby is murder its way different than abortion, anyway what person in a right frame of mind wud kill a newborn baby? if they dont want the baby put it up for adaption and the baby might have a bright future ahead of it. killing an inocent newborn baby is just cruel how cud you after carrying that around for 9 months? jasus i dont understand some people in this world

there is people that try so hard in this world to have a baby and it doesnt work for them, life is the greatest gift in the world!!

and killing a baby i think that person shud be shot in the face to say they are not human!!

[BootSlick55]

It's an academic paper and therefore an argument purely based on a certain implacable logic. It may be the case that the authors are attempting to undercut the pro-choice argument through an absurdist equivalence (in the style of Swift's A Modest Proposal)

My own view is that abortion should be permitted up to 21 years.

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

[saoirsemac]

i feel that if a babby is born that has massive problems that will lead to it being in pain and having to get extensive operations and the possibliity of surviving or having a normal life should be considered

would it not be more humain to put down the above case than let it suffer for a few years going through countless operations for it then to pass away

is it fair to put a small child through that much pain for the selfishness of the parents

agree i see it more in the sense of euthasia, why bring a child into the world, who life is greatly reduced an impacted by a disabilty, i mean we had a case where a mother was delighted her child which 2 who was born with a brain and needs many machines to keep her alive its wrong the child wnt thank you, if a parent feels they cant cope then maybe there shud be an option, i agree in euthasia in adults too but thats a different matter

[Doozer]

i feel that if a babby is born that has massive problems that will lead to it being in pain and having to get extensive operations and the possibliity of surviving or having a normal life should be considered

would it not be more humain to put down the above case than let it suffer for a few years going through countless operations for it then to pass away

is it fair to put a small child through that much pain for the selfishness of the parents

Could lead to a slippery slope, use eugenics to eradicate any infant that was disabled

[Dub Lad]

i feel that if a babby is born that has massive problems that will lead to it being in pain and having to get extensive operations and the possibliity of surviving or having a normal life should be considered

would it not be more humain to put down the above case than let it suffer for a few years going through countless operations for it then to pass away

is it fair to put a small child through that much pain for the selfishness of the parents

Of course it's fair it's called the right to life regardless of the quality the baby will have. You can't say for certain that those countless operations will result in the babies death you just can't.

[Dub Lad]

agree i see it more in the sense of euthasia, why bring a child into the world, who life is greatly reduced an impacted by a disabilty, i mean we had a case where a mother was delighted her child which 2 who was born with a brain and needs many machines to keep her alive its wrong the child wnt thank you, if a parent feels they cant cope then maybe there shud be an option, i agree in euthasia in adults too but thats a different matter

Cause of a disability you want to kill babies? Just because a parent can't cope you don't just go around killing them jesus, you're talking about murder here.

[saoirsemac]

Cause of a disability you want to kill babies? Just because a parent can't cope you don't just go around killing them jesus, you're talking about murder here.

im not talking about downs here but severe cases, children born without rectums, serve physical deformation, internal organs outside the body, no brain etc etc, im talking about exterme cases here,

yes right to life, but wud u want a life of pain, and maybe be brain dead, ur just trapped there,

thats not a life

[doodlebug]

I am not sure how I feel about the arguments for and against, my first reaction is I hope that none of us are ever in the position of having to make that choice.

[Dub Lad]

why is it viewed so differently between humans and animals we are all the same

if a horse falls and breaks a leg its more humaine to put the horse down that let it suffer in pain is it not
so if a child is born and has to be kept on machienes and is in pain why extend that pain any further than is needed

if something happened me which ment that id be in amense pain and could not have a normal life id want someone to have the kindness to pull the plug

Ok, ok *takes deep breath* you're comparing a baby with a disability to the same thing as an animal in pain, seriously?
What if I pulled the plug and two years later there's an advancement in science, technology and medicine? So people in wheelchairs who are in immense pain should be killed? Someone who was in a car accident left paralysed should be killed?