Via a particularly excellent Best of the Web column today, I learned that a prominent group of “ethicists” at Oxford University has concluded that, in the words of the Telegraph: “Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are ‘morally irrelevant’ and ending their lives is no different to abortion.” The article continues:
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.
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.”
Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus 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’.
Now, my hunch is that for the vast majority of the civilized — and, frankly, uncivilized — world, the only thing these authors have demonstrated is their own “moral irrelevance.”
There’s so much that can be said about this, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Many abortion opponents in the 1970s argued that legalizing abortion opened the door to a slippery slope where people would start advocating infanticide. Such arguments were greeted by many pro-abortion rights activists as paranoid and extreme. But lo and behold, they were absolutely right. When you lift one taboo, it is difficult to plant a new one that everyone will agree on. Now the growing Peter Singer caucus is encroaching ever more deeply into the mainstream. It’s a disgusting, reprehensible and evil turn of events.
But that much should be obvious to most people. What I find interesting, though of much lesser importance I concede, is the intriguing consensus between the two “extremes.” Ardent prolifers consider abortion evil because they believe — broadly speaking — aborting a fetus is morally akin to killing a baby (the two acts are not necessarily always identical, as Ramesh explains in his brilliant but under-appreciated book The Party of Death, but close enough for purposes of discussion).
The “ethicists” essentially agree, as a categorical matter. Killing a baby is akin to aborting a fetus — so go ahead and kill babies! In other words if you place no moral weight on a fetus, they argue, you should place no moral weight on a newborn either. Conversely if you invest enormous moral weight to a newborn, argue the pro-lifers, you should invest at least some moral weight in a fetus as well.
The moral difference in worldview is total, but the terms and logic are remarkably similar.
While I think their argument is beyond repugnant, the “ethicists” are providing a valuable service insofar as they are making plain the logic supporting abortion.
I don’t support death threats, never mind murder plots, but the self-righteous shock of the ethicists at the response to their argument is deliciously asinine. James Taranto writes, “people who issue death threats in response to an academic article are indeed ‘fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society.’ But so are people who write or publish academic articles arguing in favor of the murder of children.”
I wouldn’t even go that far. People who issue these death threats are wrong to do so, but their outrage is understandable, even healthy. For a liberal society that loses its capacity to be disgusted by cold-blooded arguments for infanticide has lost its ability to sustain and nurture freedom itself.
As much as I would love to hear Whoppi Goldberg explain why this isn't murder, murder, I've got "$10K" that says this story will never be reported on broadcast (that is to say, over the air) television. Maybe some of the cable nets pick it up, but NBCABCCBS? Forgettaboutit
The Telegraph-UK, not coincidentally, publishes a lot of things that the traditional US media will drive an hour out of the city to bury so it's never seen or heard from.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy would a major news outlet waste time on a story about some crank ethicist from England saying something outrageous? Academics say crazy things all the time, and if it was breaking news every time this happened, there wouldn't be room for anything else.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe problem is that these morally corrupt thinkers aren't alone and they are in the top colleges pushing ths intellectual waste into the minds of future generation leaders.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm willing to bet that every one of the academics involved have expressed sympathy with Muslims who issue death threats over absurd "offenses" to what they hold sacred. Treating a book--not the text, but a physical book--as something worth murdering random people over is an understandable response to our insensitivity, even if it is inadvertent. But really, who could possibly hold children to be THAT special?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"While I think their argument is beyond repugnant, the 'ethicists' are providing a valuable service insofar as they are making plain the logic supporting abortion."
Their argument is entirely logical and should be celebrated and repeated. If you support the abortion of a viable fetus, how could you not support the killing of a fourth trimester newborn? Thought you were having boy? Oops, into the trash you go. A newborn that's minutes old isn't going to feel any more pain or agony than the viable fetus and isn't any more capable of defending itself than the fetus. One is attached to an umbilical cord; the other isn't.
How does passing through a birth canal suddenly grant a "being" rights to life not afforded to fetus still in the womb if both are equally viable?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes.
Democrats talk about birth as if the birth canal is some magical tunnel that turns lumps of tissue into babies. And then they call themselves the party that understands science.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I wouldn’t even go that far. People who issue these death threats are wrong to do so, but their outrage is understandable, even healthy. For a liberal society that loses its capacity to be disgusted by cold-blooded arguments for infanticide has lost its ability to sustain and nurture freedom itself."
Exactly. I mean for people who are pro-life (even up to and including being against the death penalty) to make death threats for something that is a written opinion, no matter how repugnant, is wrong. But at least it does show that people are still outraged about such talk.
I would be more worried when others start nodding their heads in agreement with infanticide. And I'm sure there were plenty who read it and did nod their heads. That is the really scary part. There was a woman being interviewed on British television that basically said the same thing. The interviewer was rightfully horrified. But the woman defended what she said and didn't seem nonplussed by the opinion whatsoever. That is evil in its truest form.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"The interviewer was rightfully horrified".
This sentiment is a very powerful yet simple example of how abortion has been institutionalized in our society/culture. It is somewhat positive that we are "horrified" at the thought of infanticide yet permissive of abortion, considering that the two acts are identical. It give me hope that younger generations will begin seeing abortion as equally horrifying.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI remember that interview. I think you're referring to the one with author Virginia Ironside. Link: External Link
Transcript:
VIRGINIA IRONSIDE: "...if I was a mother of a suffering child, I would be the first to want—I mean, a deeply suffering child—I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face, and I think that the difference is that my feeling of horror at suffering is much greater than my feeling of, uh, getting rid of a couple of cells, because suffering can go on for years..."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTALK SHOW HOSTESS: "I'm—I'm sorry, I was just about to introduce another guest, but that was a pretty horrifying thing—"
VIRGINIA IRONSIDE: "What?"
TALK SHOW HOSTESS: "—to say, that you would put a pillow over..."
VIRGINIA IRONSIDE: "Of course I would, if it was a child I really loved and it was in agony. I think any good mother would."
I'm very happy to see lunatics like these people and Singer make their case. It's extremely helpful to the pro-life cause. I've long-argued that there is no difference between a child in-utero and that same child moments after birth. Virtually every pro-choice argument in favor of abortion is also an argument in favor of infanticide. The Singers of the world are actually quite consistent.
If one is pro-choice but thinks Singer-types are insane, they are simply using pregnancy as some sort of psychotic "grace period" in which to dispatch the unwanted child. They are no less murderous than Singer and those referenced in Jonah's post.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNone of this is surprising or shocking. Certain people in the world have no problem killing off less desirable elements, like the unwanted, unborn child, the baby born with a handicap, or anyone else they see as unfit to coexist with them. It won't be said out loud, except in these very rare circumstances, but they're exactly the sort of people who would go to the mat to prevent things like a Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
They're also the sort of people who demand we have a government run health care system that can decide who gets treatment and who doesn't. Viewed another way, it's who gets to live and who doesn't.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse". . . they're exactly the sort of people who would go to the mat to prevent things like a Born Alive Infant Protection Act."
Which tells us all we need to know about the Hope and Change envisioned by one of those you to whom you refer.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe original Journal of Medical Ethics article sounds so over the top that I wonder if it is akin to Swift's "A Modest Proposal." Is it possible that the authors are trying to draw attention to debate by projecting the pro-abortion position out to it's eventual absurd conclusion? Is this parody or what they actually believe?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOnce you decide that born infants lack the qualities that give them human rights, it's a very short step to deciding that the severly handicapped also lack these qualities.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThen it's the elderly that lack these qualities.
Then it's anyone who disagrees with you.
Exactly.
I hope that talk of permitting infanticide becomes commonplace because I think younger generations will re-think abortion itself. Such talk will only escalate society's growing distaste for legal abortion.
We're raising 5 kids who are educated at private schools. The numbers of kids actively pro-life from early grades through high school is wonderful and gives me a ton of confidence in the future.....and this is only minorly anecdotal as we've witnessed these powerful pro-life leanings through associations with many other schools too.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYoung people are more pro-life.
It's one of the most underreported stories of this generation. Yes, they are pro-gay marriage, but this generation more than their parents opposes abortion as a form of birth control and favors more restrictions on it.
They are the Sonogram Generation. They grew up with sonogram pictures of their siblings on the kitchen fridge. Prior to this generation, sonograms were used for pregnancies where a complication was suspected if at all. This generation has seen the truth. It is not a lump of tissue.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere is a certain deranged logic to this. There is nothing magical that happens in the birth canal that turns a fetus into a baby. So, if it's okay to kill it on one side, it stands to reason it's okay to kill it on the other.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWilliam is exactly right, with regards to the elimination of undesirables. One only need view the excellent exposé on the origins of the abortion lobby, Maafa 21. Everything old is new again. The language of rationalization...the particular turns of phrase may have changed, but the root agenda still remains.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWherever Adolf Hitler is spending his time these days, I'll bet his greatest regret is that he was born 100 years too soon. "Dolfie" could walk into any liberal arts faculty lounge, offer up his views as described in "Mein Kampf," and none of the Ph.D.'s there would think he'd be the least bit out of the mainstream.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusecredentialed useful idiots
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse