IPFS News Link • Eugenics
Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say
• www.telegraph.co.ukThe 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.
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”.
The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.
They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”
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2 Comments in Response to Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say
A person goes to school for, what??? 10, 12 years and does not understand that an actual born child is no longer part of the birth others body? The difference between a fetus and an actual born body is that the born baby is there, and the mother can choose to walk away. Really, do you need an IQ of more than a plant to understand this?
Shades of "Wild in the Streets" (movie circa late 1960's), "Logan's Run" (movie, circa mid 1970's), and Star Trek: The Next Generation's episode "Half a Life".
Widely available pre-birth abortion is fairly new, and as yet unsettled in law. The struggle continues . . .
Infanticide is not new, having been practiced in Sparta, a popularly romantacized ancient Greek culture. I gather that for more than the last millenium infanticide is not widely practiced in the West, if at all. I think it should stay that way.
Current trends in government nanny-like control of individual behavior being what they are, if this became legal with parental consent one week, it would be government-mandated the next.
This ain't good.
I'm an old fart. A law against infants will not impact me - it's the law that'll doubtless come on the heels of it that DOES affect old farts, and THAT's the one I'm worried about.
Better to fight this fight at this battle line.
DC Treybil