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Journal of Medical Ethics Says Newborn Babies not People, Can be Killed
FrontPage ^ | August 10, 2013 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 08/12/2013 4:02:47 AM PDT by NYer

And why not? If we go on defining human life down, we’ll end up determining that anyone can be killed at any time in the name of the greater good.

That’s where this road of warped ethics inevitably leads.

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.

You know, if you’re going to call for murdering babies, maybe you need to drop the “Ethics” part. If you’re going to be the worst people in the world, at least stop calling your behavior ethical.

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”.

Apparently the values of a liberal society involve killing newborn babies. And if that’s so, is it fanatical to be opposed to killing newborn babies or is it fanatical to advocate killing them?

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.”

Perhaps a study can be done which would discuss the moral status of people who deny the right of infants to live.

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’.

Call it the Fetusization of babies.

“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.”

As such they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”.

The authors therefore 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 preferred to use the phrase “after-birth abortion” rather than “infanticide” to “emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus”.

Wendy Davis would be proud.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he added: “This “debate” has been an example of “witch ethics” – a group of people know who the witch is and seek to burn her. It is one of the most dangerous human tendencies we have. It leads to lynching and genocide. Rather than argue and engage, there is a drive is to silence and, in the extreme, kill, based on their own moral certainty. That is not the sort of society we should live in.”

No, the society we live on should urge the murder of infants based on the moral certainity of ethical professionals such as these.

 


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: abortion; defectivenewborns; disablednewborns; infanticide; life; murder
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To: NYer
I always said (sarcasically I thought) that if a baby can be "aborted" (murdered) after the point where it is capable of living on its own, it's really not much of a step to post-birth abortions.

Conservatives have to do a better job of controlling the dialect. A "late term abortion" would better be described as a "pre-separation murder". Once the infant is viable, separation is a better word than abortion for describing the situation.

21 posted on 08/12/2013 4:46:25 AM PDT by grania
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To: NYer
The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics...

Well,there's the problem right there.This is an issue of *practical* ethics versus the *impractical* variety.

22 posted on 08/12/2013 4:53:49 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (If Obama Had A City It Would Look Like Detroit)
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To: NYer

“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.”

First, note the use of the feminine pronoun “her”. Does this mean only female babies can be killed, like the Chinese do?

Second, if we apply this criteria - capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value - then ALL politicians MUST be killed. Further application of this criteria would be extended to the homeless, the handicapped, the unemployed, etc.


23 posted on 08/12/2013 4:53:51 AM PDT by NTHockey (Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners. And to the NSA trolls, FU)
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To: Clean_Sweep
It wont be long from now when they say the same thing about adults with defects.

I would agree with your premise, and also add that Journal of Medical Ethics would fall into a separate but equally useless category, and we should spare us, from listening to anything they say.

Or put another way!

Dirtnaps for all Journal of Medical Ethics contributors!

24 posted on 08/12/2013 4:56:16 AM PDT by SERE_DOC ( “The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.” TJ.)
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To: NYer

No one thinks of themselves as “the bad guy”, though I cannot remember the psychological name for that phenomenon. Human beings are marvels of self-justification. We rationalize more often than we are rational. The SS thought they were doing a GOOD thing when they gased all of those jews and other undesirables.


25 posted on 08/12/2013 4:56:58 AM PDT by Pecos (Kritarchy: government by the judges)
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To: NYer
“Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics”

There is no such thing as "practical ethics". There is always a right and a wrong. There is no such thing as an ethical "compromise".

26 posted on 08/12/2013 5:03:52 AM PDT by cincinnati65
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To: NYer

The author says he received death threats. Why is he not applauding those who sent him the threats? Are they not also part of a “liberal society” like him?


27 posted on 08/12/2013 5:09:17 AM PDT by Drawsing
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To: NYer

If we can murder a 8 month fetus why can’t we murder an 8 month child?

Murder is Murder, and abortionists are Murder Inc.


28 posted on 08/12/2013 5:11:24 AM PDT by Venturer ( cowardice posturing as tolerance =political correctness)
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To: NYer

pure garbage - there is a special place in hell for theese people


29 posted on 08/12/2013 5:15:34 AM PDT by WorkerbeeCitizen (I'll surrender my guns alright - bullets first)
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To: NYer

...and the law says kill a pregnant woman and you have killed two.


30 posted on 08/12/2013 5:19:13 AM PDT by wita
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To: Drawsing
Why is he not applauding those who sent him the threats?

I wondered that, too. If a human being's right to life is determined by how others feel about him, what grounds does he have to object to anyone's feeling that he and his colleagues are expendable?

31 posted on 08/12/2013 5:19:42 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Ask me about the Weiner Wager. Support Free Republic!)
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To: NYer

I wonder how many of these nutjobs are animal rights activists?


32 posted on 08/12/2013 5:21:48 AM PDT by rfreedom4u (I have a copy of the Constitution! And I'm not afraid to use it!)
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To: NYer

Parodies of the past are becoming reality.


33 posted on 08/12/2013 5:24:08 AM PDT by Brooklyn Attitude (Obama being re-elected is the political equivalent of OJ being found not guilty.)
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To: Clean_Sweep

That wouldn’t be a new thing for ‘humanity’. Other societies have done this with the nazis and chicoms being the most recent examples.

But to your point I can see it happening here for some of the same twisted reasons.


34 posted on 08/12/2013 5:28:02 AM PDT by ealgeone (obama, border)
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To: rfreedom4u

I would say all of them. But as the song says “....Enjoy it while you can because your time is coming, buddy....”


35 posted on 08/12/2013 5:28:41 AM PDT by sport
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To: NYer

Gee lets just take the liberal death cult logic further and not only kill the babies but first harvest their usable organs then after killing them grind them up to make soilent green to feed the poor.


36 posted on 08/12/2013 5:30:46 AM PDT by Wurlitzer (Nothing says "ignorance" like Islam! 969)
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To: Pecos

Exactly right. They love these high sounding titles. Pete Singer who advocates pretty much the same thing is a Professor of Bioethics at Princeton.


37 posted on 08/12/2013 5:39:55 AM PDT by xp38
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To: Wurlitzer
Gee lets just take the liberal death cult logic further and not only kill the babies but first harvest their usable organs then after killing them grind them up to make soilent green to feed the poor.

No doubt this is part of the plan. About 10 years ago, British scientists developed a procedure to harvest eggs from aborted female babies. The plan was to use these to assist infertile couples in having children. The only impediment at that time, was a team of psychologists who determined society was not yet ready to accept such an advance. Recently, the concept resurfaced and is being re-evaluated. Imagine growing up and searching for your birth mother only to discover that she had never been born.

38 posted on 08/12/2013 5:40:16 AM PDT by NYer ( "Run from places of sin as from the plague."--St John Climacus)
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To: NYer
The Telegraph article here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html

clearly outlines that this is British/Euro Liberal thinking on medical ethics.

Julian Savulescu writes in defense in its blog,
"What the response to this article reveals, through the microscope of the web, is the deep disorder of the modern world. Not that people would give arguments in favour of infanticide, but the deep opposition that exists now to liberal values and fanatical opposition to any kind of reasoned engagement."

The larger point here is the consequence of permitting progressive liberals to continue to erode national identity & sovereignty, as the trend in Britain/Euro is only slightly behind the curve spearheaded by libs here in the States.

I would concur with Mr. Savulescu: Prevention of reasoned engagement of liberal values will take fanatical opposition.

I, for one, am all for it.
39 posted on 08/12/2013 5:44:42 AM PDT by logi_cal869
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To: NYer
 photo EXTRA_zps6bdb3cd4.png
40 posted on 08/12/2013 6:04:54 AM PDT by baddog 219
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