Inevitable Expansions

The Killing Fields Extend

Two Australian ethicists have argued in the Journal of Medical Ethics that infanticide is perfectly acceptable if the newborn is not wanted.  If you happen to be a pro-abortion believer, it's hard to fault their logic.  In fact, impossible.

Now, no doubt there will be plenty of effete liberals who (at least initially) would recoil in horror at the suggestions of their ethicists.  But they will not be able to refute their arguments.  If you are prepared to "terminate" or kill a baby in the womb you will have little reason to object ten minutes after the baby emerges from the womb.  There will be those who wriggle around trying to find another sky-hook on which to hang some counter-ethical principle to justify in-uterus homicide and reject it ex-uterus--but it will all be without foundation, just a wish, a preference, a prejudice or a bias.

Alberto Giubilini (Photo: Academia.edu)

Alberto Giubilini with Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne write that in “circumstances occur[ing] after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.” 

The two are quick to note that they prefer the term “after-birth abortion“ as opposed to ”infanticide.” Why? Because it “[emphasizes] that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child.” The authors also do not agree with the term euthanasia for this practice as the best interest of the person who would be killed is not necessarily the primary reason his or her life is being terminated. In other words, it may be in the parents’ best interest to terminate the life, not the newborns.

Now there is a perfect consistency here.  If there is a woman's right to determine the quality of her own life such that it is perfectly moral and legal to murder her own in-utero child, there must also be the same right once the child has been born.  Think of what an unbearable burden children are on the life of parents.  That has to be grounds for infanticide, whether in-utero or ex-utero.  And if the child is going to be a burden upon the state, the government also has a prior, pre-emptive right to require murder. 

The circumstances, the authors state, where after-birth abortion should be considered acceptable include instances where the newborn would be putting the well-being of the family at risk, even if it had the potential for an “acceptable” life. The authors cite Downs Syndrome as an example, stating that while the quality of life of individuals with Downs is often reported as happy, “such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”

When faced with the objection that this principle of burden and cost and trouble justifying killing babies "proves" too much, because it could also justify killing lots of other "undesirables" the authors do their own wriggle.  They grab a hold of a sky-hook.  A newborn infant is not a person.  Well, according to the ethicists they have created a new category and definition of personhood out of the demonic wellsprings of their hearts.  A "person" they proclaim--because they are as gods--is one who is able to contribute to one's own existence in some way.  Really!  Yes, really!

Now where did that come from?  Well, it just seemed good to us as at the time.

Into the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo.

Francesca Minerva (Photo: Academia.edu)

"Ah, darling--if we are to find adequate ethical grounds for killing newborn infants we have to have a spiffy  idea to distinguish the time of being in the killing field and when they have moved out of it."

"Oh, yes.  How about this?  Let's postulate 'making a contribution to one's own existence' a sign of being a true human being."

"Wonderful.  Works for me.  Will you be at Bridge this afternoon, dear?"

The authors go on to state that the moral status of a newborn is equivalent to a fetus in that it cannot be considered a person in the “morally relevant sense.” On this point, the authors write:

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’. 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.
[...]
Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life. Indeed, many humans are not considered subjects of a right to life: spare embryos where research on embryo stem cells is permitted, fetuses where abortion is permitted, criminals where capital punishment is legal.

Giubilini and Minerva believe that being able to understand the value of a different situation, which often depends on mental development, determines personhood. For example, being able to tell the difference between an undesirable situation and a desirable one. They note that fetuses and newborns are “potential persons.” The authors do acknowledge that a mother, who they cite as an example of a true person, can attribute “subjective” moral rights to the fetus or newborn, but they state this is only a projected moral status.

The authors counter the argument that these “potential persons” have the right to reach that potential by stating it is “over-ridden by the interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being because, as we have just argued, merely potential people cannot be harmed by not being brought into existence.”

Then, if raising the child is going to be an unbearable burden, why not adoption?  Ah, that can create such burdens upon the adopting out parents that it justifies killing the child.

And what about adoption? Giubilini and Minerva write that, as for the mother putting the child up for adoption, her emotional state should be considered as a trumping right. For instance, if she were to “suffer psychological distress” from giving up her child to someone else — they state that natural mothers can dream their child will return to them — then after-birth abortion should be considered an allowable alternative.