Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktNot as good as Kevin’s efforts, I’m sure, but since no one else is stepping to the plate….
Depressingly, two Australian professors and medical ethicists have written a paper arguing that newborn babies are not actual persons, are morally irrelevant, and have no moral right to life.
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’.
After-birth abortion? I’m guessing the pro-choicers won’t be too happy with that nomenclature.
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The New York Times editorial board initiates it’s own war on biology in an editorial about an attempt in New Hampshire to repeal a law legalizing same-sex marriage:
Representative David Bates, the Republican who filed the repeal bill, argues that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, and he even included a sentence that says: “Children can only be conceived naturally through copulation by heterosexual couples.” This is breathtakingly dangerous foolishness.
Ah, the breathtakingly dangerous foolishness of how babies are made.
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How about a little March Madness primer:
Filed under: Uncategorized |
All Things in Moderation 
“newborn babies are not actual persons, are morally irrelevant, and have no moral right to life.”
I’m a long lapsed catholic, so may have my wires crossed. But… how is this any different from the catholic belief that the unbaptized go to purgatory? The way I recall it from parochial school is that babies who die before they’re baptized are neither saved (and thus go to heaven) nor condemned to hell. Is anyone here more current on their catechism?
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After-birth abortion? I’m guessing the pro-choicers won’t be too happy with that nomenclature.
Personally, this pro-choicer thinks their whole premise (and I didn’t bother to read any more of it than your excerpt) is heinous. How is a newborn not an “actual person”? I know that there have been many cultures through the years that didn’t name their children until they’d been alive for 30 days and other such waiting periods, but that was because so many children died immediately after birth because of antiquated (or non-existent) healthcare. In the 21st century these two authors strike me as barbarians.
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Mich:
Personally, this pro-choicer thinks their whole premise (and I didn’t bother to read any more of it than your excerpt) is heinous.
Agreed.
How is a newborn not an “actual person”?
The idea I think is that moral status is attached not to the notion of humanity, but rather to the notion of personhood, and they claim that newborns have not yet acquired the characteristics required for personhood, namely the capability “of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” They say the newborn is a potential person, but not an actual person yet. It is not clear from the article at which point they think it becomes an actual person.
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The justifications for post-birth “abortion” or infanticide have been around for a long time. “Ethicist” Peter Singer got famous for his “courageous” expressions on the topic.
A slightly different justification was at work in opposition to born-alive legislation a few years ago. NRO had a column on this again the other day in response to Newt’s call-out of the media’s failure to grill Obama about his opposition. Obama has of course said that the legislation was superfluous because infanticide was already illegal, but what clearly was not covered was the law’s treatment of abortion-surviving infants whom the performing physician did not think ultimately would survive. In that case, the combination of predelivery intention to abort (kill) and belief that the surviving infant likely would expire excluded that infant from any legal protections, and that is a gap that Obama and others opposed closing. This was a fairly ghoulish position, imo.
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qb-
the combination of predelivery intention to abort (kill) and belief that the surviving infant likely would expire excluded that infant from any legal protections
That seems like a particularly unavailing legal justification.
Anyway, qb (oranyone else), do you find at all persuasivethe argument that maybe we are best off leaving this decision to the physician and parents in the room? I’m having trouble justifying that argument considering that this by most definitions is murder, but at the same time, there are some countervailing interests of privacy and preventing unnecessary suffering (I do recognize the argument that the abortion created the unnecessary suffering to begin with).
Maybe this is a better debate for email as I can see this becoming a somewhat heated discussion given the sensitive nature of the topic.
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The NYT editorial–what can one even say?
At least their fatuous arguments could be less cliche-ridden.
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After-birth abortion? I’m guessing the pro-choicers won’t be too happy with that nomenclature
QB, we should move to Australia and become criminal defense laywers.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury…my client did not murder his wife, this was not murder, it was after-birth abortion.
On a far more serious note, this issues hits somewhat close to home as I have a good friend who’s sister is 8 months pregnant with a baby with anencephaly. He recently sent a group of us an email on the topic about the situation and talking about how he hopes his niece lives long enough for him to say hello and give her a kiss.
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I recall first hearing that “argument” as an undergrad. I thought it was a joke or a position taken for debate purposes. Nope.
Very sorry to about your friend’s niece, ash.
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I can see this becoming a somewhat heated discussion
Not on my end. I am sorry for your friends sister and the family. I had a friend years ago whose baby only lived a matter of hours and it’s heartbreaking, even when you know it’s coming.
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it’s heartbreaking
Agreed. I started tearing up writing my comment and definitely cried when I read my friend’s email.
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At least when Johnathan Swift proposed something like this (in A Modest Proposal), it was done as satire.
BSimon, my recollection from Catholic school is that we are all born with original sin and carry that until we are baptized. If a baby dies prior to being baptized, they can’t go to heaven. I remember asking the question where do they go at CCD and was told “they don’t go to heaven and I can’t believe God would send them to hell…so I don’t know”. I also recall discussions of purgatory. In researching this, wiki says that the Catholic church has no position “on the eternal fate of unbaptized infants, leaving theologians free to propose different theories, which Catholics are free to accept or reject”.
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OK….so i read a large part of their paper. My first thought is that I am in the wrong profession because if I could get paid to write stuff like this, it would be a lot more fun than what I am doing now. My second thought is that this is an attempt to get people who don’t believe abortion is morally wrong to reconsider their logic on the matter. If everybody can seem to agree (disagree with us) that after-birth abortion is morally wrong and atrocious, our logic indicates you should feel that way about any pre-birth abortion, since both are in the same state of “potential persons”. Maybe I was too quick in my assumption that this was not put out as satire.
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I already have been beaten to A Modest Proposal, but that’s what came to mind immediately upon reading this item. My understanding of current law is that viability is the point beyond which abortion is forbidden. I’m a bit uncomfortable with medical technology deciding the point at which a fetus is protected from abortion, but there are all sorts of uncomfortable lines in this discussion.
I am very uncomfortable with the personhood laws, though they might have some amusing consequences. Is a baby conceived in the U.S. a citizen regardless as to where the birth occurred? I wonder if one needs video confirmation. That might give Rush a bit of a thrill.
Speaking of El Rushbo, I wonder about his demand for video evidence. I’m a government employee and so my family’s health insurance is paid for by the public. My wife’s contraceptives are included as part of our plan. As she is being paid for sex, I guess that makes her a slut or a prostitute in Rush’s world. Perhaps we should be posting videos of our horizontal mambos to a public youtube channel. Mind you, those would be about as desirable viewing as Ross and Rachel’s inadvertent sex video. http://www.friends-tv.org/zz804.html
Perhaps contraception be banned from my health plan on the grounds that my wife’s prescription violates the religious freedom of Catholic taxpayers.
BB
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I am very uncomfortable with the personhood laws, though they might have some amusing consequences. Is a baby conceived in the U.S. a citizen regardless as to where the birth occurred?
If it’s not a federal personhood law, then I would say no. Of course, the fetus would have to be a citizen of that state, but I don’t think federal law would be required to recognize that as U.S. citizenship, until such time as the US had a personhood law. In which case, then any baby demonstrably conceived in the United States would be a U.S. citizen.
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