Killing Newborns Okay by Oxford Academics
Cute, sure, but not an actual person according to Oxford academics.
Parents should be able to kill their newborn children. So have concluded a group of academics with ties to Oxford University. In a recent article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, the authors concluded that there is no difference between abortion and killing a newborn. They called the latter “after birth abortion.” The Telegraphs’ Stephen Adams reports:
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’.
“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.”
While no doubt repugnant to many readers, the premise which these authors have rested their case upon is actually a welcome concession which advances the pro-life argument. Indeed, there is no moral difference between the born and the unborn. Of course, that means we should protect the unborn, not kill our children. Even the journal’s editor acknowledges that their premise works both ways.
[Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics] said the journal would consider publishing an article positing that, if there was no moral difference between abortion and killing newborns, then abortion too should be illegal.
By accepting the premise which pro-life activists have long asserted, that there is no difference in moral value between the born and the unborn, the authors lead us to the more fundamental premise upon which not just abortion but every political issue must ultimately be decided. What are rights, and where do they come from?
According to the authors, in order to have a right to life, a human being must be “capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” In other words, fetuses and newborns have nothing to lose. So killing them deprives them of nothing.
Oh, but aren’t we sure that, if the talk weren’t about killing newborns but, rather, getting the murderers of Kriss Donald (and countless other such scumbags) executed for their barbaric act, the same academics would scream their lungs out about how inhumane and unfair that would be?
Of course they would. After all, anyone who is capable of murder is also “capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.”
Excellent article!!
It is still surprising to me how ideologies come full circle – how is it that in the name of pretty good things, such as more (sexual) freedom, the right to choose, understanding of different sexual attitudes etc, we come back to fascism from the other side? This seems to happen with all sorts of progressive ideologies, and I’m not sure why? (Yes, extremism of all sorts is probably bad, but it’s an unsatisfactory answer) Would love to read your thoughts on this issue – truly excellent writing!
Bye, Orit
LTKT! Acronym: (Prounounced LitKit) Let Them Keep Talking! The more they shoot their mouths off, the more they make our argument for us. Again, LTKT!
Unless those things weren’t “pretty good”, after all.
I was going to say that, and then I scroll down and there YOU are!
People don’t seem to understand temptation. Part of the reason temptations are tempting is because “Hey! they make sense… to a point! And don’t worry, we’ll NEVER go beyond that point.” Next thing you know, you’re standing at the borderline of where you promised you’d never go, and that frontier looks more delicious – and reasonable! – than you ever thought it would.
Evil can do more than promise a good time. It can talk logic. We can indeed reason our way into Evil.
Oh yes, that’s where the Nazis, Communists and other despotic regimes went wrong. They failed to get the University academia to preach their evil for them.
Actually the University was where these ideas got preached legitimatized and the cult of selective rationality was born. It is actually no coincidence that the lowest ideas are preached by those claiming to be the most learned and sophisticated.
The term eugenics springs to mind! The definition they gave includes forcible euthanasia, not to end suffering but to end responsibility.
If there is no difference between the born and the unborn, then it is obviously a crime to kill either.
Jaafar,
You are exactly right…but for the Left, its “in for a penny, in for a pound”
Selfish people will always need a way out of the natural consequences created by their own behavior. It is their RIGHT you see….
Just as it is their right to spend Other Peoples Money for that which they view essential for themselves or their priorities, so then logically they must they extinguish Other Peoples Lives if they interfere with them, or their priorities.
The problem is, medical science in clear. There is NO difference between a baby inside or outside the womb in the latter stages. None whatsoever. The Vagina does not simply create a new life at the point of delivery. They know this. Everyone (honestly) knows this to be true.
Everyone honestly knows fetus is a child, and killing a child is an unpleasant form of murder for the sake of personal or societal convenience….Abortion is simply indefensible in that model, and they are thus left in a bit of a pickle promoting their Ascent To Supreme Authority over our lowly little selves, under the guise of defending our freedoms.
So they must effectively change what “murder” itself is…..and include fully developed, functioning, normal health children as murder victims to excuse the concept of abortion. They actually have no other choice if they are to continue pushing their narrative.
The fig leaf they are using to excuse their arrogance? Little people cant fend for/decide for themselves, therefore WE must have final say in the matter. The Intellectuals, the fully grown. The Elite, The Masters Who Decide All Things
Like Nazis and others, they distort truth to excuse horror, all in the name of Their Own Sacred Self Importance.
My only surprise is, it took them THIS long to make the final leap to advocating live child murder. They’ve been otherwise pretty clear about who they are, for the last 100 years.
There are two factors that are consistently left out in the debate. One is: what if it is a toss-up between saving the life of the foetus and saving the life of the mother—something magnified infinitely if you face the prospect of TWO dead humans instead of one! Whose life then takes priority and who makes the decision? The classic example is the ectopic pregnancy, where the fertilised egg attaches to the wall of the Fallopian tube rather than to the womb. In such a case there is absolutely no chance of saving the foetus, but a very high chance of the mother dying from peritonitis(and taking her unborn child with her!) Related to that is if the mother is found to have metastasising cancer. In such a case chenotherapy is a no-no since the drugs kill ALL rapidly dividing cells—including those of the foetus!
The other factor is that just because sexual intercourse results in the fertilisation of the egg it does not automatically follow that that egg is going to develop into a viable foetus. Just what percentage of fertilised eggs fail to implant, or else miscarry part way through development ic naturally not easy to ascertain. But it seems that the pro-life lobby have failed to see that after conception must come implantation, and in such a place and manner as will ensure that development through the nine months
Tarry a little; there is something else. it is one thing for a child to be conceived in an intimate act of love between two who are attached to each other in the most loving of relationships. It is another thing altogether when the pregnancy results form a brutal act of what I have heard called “the ultimate invasion of a woman’s privacy”. Reactions to the infant, once born, have always varied. At one extreme the mother has seen the helpless baby that she once was; at the other the child has been killed, or at the very least rejected by the mother, entailing some form of adoption. In cases like this the religious and moral dogmatists(as well as the rulebook-quoting lawyers!) should back off—and be prepared to support the woman, regardless of the decision she takes. In short, she must be allowed the last word.
I suggest you stick to the point; one of the most difficult things about discussing anything with liberals is that they constantly shift ground. We are talking here about the generally abhorrent “philosophy” behind the idea that an infant’s life is per se expendable. Does this always involve a conflicting decision about the mother’s life? No. In fact, rarely. Most abortions are a form of birth control, nothing more. Does this involve the choice to be made in the case of rape? No. Though let it be said that notwithstanding the rape the baby’s life is innocent of crime. What we are left with is a consensus choice that the mother’s self-interest trumps the right of the infant to life. I do not accept that as a general principle.
It doesant matter what the facts are to the narrative…
The Left always invents a one-in-a-million theoretical example to advance their cause, when the truth is the opposite….
See “Jane Doe” of the Roe vs Wade decision…theoretically raped…she of course in ACTUALITY was not, they simply found someone willing to go along with their “story” to disingenuously advance their REAL agenda, which was the de-valuing of life. That ‘Miss Roe” later became an Evangelical Anti Abortion crusader based on her revusion at being used to promote Murder for Convenience, and discarded afterward, is never mentioned by the left.
They bait and switch, change the story, and lie. I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts this Georgetown ‘slut” asking me to fund her outrageous contraception costs is actually a lesbian…a shill, a paid advocate, a partisan player in the cause, her performance a practical Job Interview display of loyalty….
She’s most likely got zero chance of conceiving a live in any of her sexual relations, and doesnt even USE birth control…but they created a “what if” story, and found someone to play the part.
Same with Trolls
It is never permissible to directly kill a fetus. If the fetus’s death is merely incidental to a legitimate medical treatment, it is a tragedy, but not murder. Nevertheless, in any case where both mother and child are in danger, both mother and child must take equal weight in the eyes of the physician, and every reasonable effort must be made to save both lives.
So, let us run down your list of scenarios:
1. Ecotopic pregnancy: you may attempt to move the embryo from the Fallopian tube into the uterus. Failing that, remove the Fallopian tube.
2. Metastatic cancer: It is licit to administer chemotherapy drugs even if they have a risk of birth defect or miscarriage, because the situation is urgent. If, however, a means that is less dangerous to the fetus can be used, it should be used instead. Above all, it is NEVER morally permissible to have an abortion in order to facilitate chemotherapy; neither may the child be left to die if born prematurely or with severe birth defects because of the chemo (or for any other reason).
3. Any case where the fetus is viable: Caesarian section or induced labor to deliver the child alive immediately, allowing treatment on the mother to be conducted without hindrance. If premature or otherwise ill, the child is to be placed in the NICU and given proper medical treatment.
Of course, it is noble for a mother to sacrifice her own well being for that of her child. It is therefore always licit for a mother to refuse medical treatments that endanger her child even if doing so will cost her her life.
In cases like this the religious and moral dogmatists(as well as the rulebook-quoting lawyers!) should back off—and be prepared to support the woman, regardless of the decision she takes. In short, she must be allowed the last word.
This is the crux of the left’s argument, isn’t it? Women must be allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want and the whole state apparatus should support it, and she should never have to feel a scintilla of guilt over it. Funny, the more power we give to women the more death and destruction seems to follow.
Suggested reading: Spitzer’s “Ten Universal Principles.”
Virtually all civilizations have been paternalistic. How else do you suppose civilization has made it this far?
Ectopic pregnancy: a foolish point. A quick Google search for “ectopic pregnancy Catholic” will locate the works of moral scholars.
Evidently the Catholic Church accepts that treatment to save the life of the mother might result in the death of the fetus. Often “might” is actually “certainly will”.
One need not be Catholic to appreciate the reasoning and the fundamental values. One need not accept it either.
But it is unseemly to throw out a moral conundrum as if it were a new thought.
Why didn’t anyone notice the gender specific “her” referring to the fetus or newborn. Guess they wanted to garner favor with those who place less value on women!!!!!!
Its no secret that gender selection is increasingly the motivation for having an abortion. It was that way in China for years. Its ironic since so many otherwise conservative women I know are pro-choice.
and yes, vestal virgins are next. After all, how can a human that has not had sex be an actual person. There’s something really creepy about those who abstain… /sarc
The word “father” wasn’t used even once in the article. Suggesting to me that if the mother wanted to kill “her” baby, the father had no choice but to go along for the ride.
Scary, isn’t it? Whatever happened to “Keep your laws off my body” and “Keep congress out of my womb”? If the baby isn’t in her body anymore, how does she have any more say than the father? Or perhaps we’re just abandoning the “father” idea altogether. If we can eliminate the word “father,” then it makes the Bible all that more confusing to future generations.
Nothing much new here. The Oxfordians’ proclamation was prefigured by such developments as the Groningen Protocol and the theories of Peter Singer. The stunning thing about it is the utility of their premise — that there’s no moral difference between an abortion and any other kind of infanticide — for our purposes.
Ok…so let’s apply their own logic with a slight Jonathon Swift like twist….if this is the case with fetuses and newborns can’t the same be said of some of the leeches living on welfare…sure as heck don’t see some of them attributing much less contributing to their own existence.
Indeed, I was thinking something similar…
By golly maybe the deep thinkers justifying infanticide have shown us the way out of the welfare state. If your not self-supporting you are legally an infant. Being an infant you are vulnerable to legal murder by those providing support. For a biological infant that support is the mother. For the legal infant that means of support is the state. Parasites your end is nigh.
“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.”
E.g., if you cannot defend yourself, you may be subject to termination.
Allston
“The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus”
In other words, they’ve painted thenselves into a corner…They know a fetus is a person, and cant “sell” their murder intellectually any longer…so they have no choice now but to move the bar the OTHER way, and murder live healthy babies to excuse abortion.
None of them acually BELIEVE this mind you…they know Murder is wrong…are just Statist willing to (temporarilly!) sacrifice others until their Perfect Utopia is established…
THEN we’ll all realize how brilliant they were, how they had our best interests in mind all along, and we’ll THANK them for showing us the way to their Superior World.
Do you really believe they know murder is wrong? Just wait till they want to kill anyone who opposes their ideology, Billy Ayers style. It won’t be called murder of course. It’s reeducation, liquidation, what have you. They’ll make us out to be unwhole humans because we don’t accept the dogmatic truths of fascist liberalism, then they’ll dismiss our executions as nothing more than putting down lame animals. Too many people who’ve grown up in prosperous western nations believe the human animal has been subdued. It hasn’t. Who’d have believed that an educated, literate, rule abiding nation like Germany could in one generation start slaughtering its own citizens in the millions? It can happen anywhere.
Yes, it *can& happen anywhere. Which was part of why I posted as I did – I was marveling at the language being used. Language of which, if applied properly, desensitizes people to what’s really being said and makes it just that much more acceptable to them. I’m certain Goebbels knew this, and applied it liberally.
Personally, I have believed for some time that one of our number one dangers in the US was the increasing use of morally relativistic language to justify damned near anything. It’s a slippery slope I don’t care to descend.
Yes, they do. They don’t care, but they know in their hearts murder is wrong and God will send them to Hell for it, no matter how much they try to deny that fact.
“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.”
Here’s the rub, then: if we look at the mind from a strictly scientific viewpoint, and there is no evidence that consciousness survives death, then no one experiences any loss by being deprived of existence. They are not there to experience it. To experience, you must exist, ergo it is impossible to experience deprivation of existence.
So then… we are left without a moral argument against murder?
I was struck by the same thing. These people are proposing a test for right to life, so that it would have to be considered on a case-by-case basis. A demented person or one who is severely mentally disabled might well not pass this test. In fact, when I’m asleep I would fail it. This is a far cry from the original natural law; if you are alive, you are entitled to be alive. To these folks, it is not a natural law, it is a state-granted privilege for which you must qualify.
A major movie of the third reich was about how immoral it was to keep people with degenerative illnesses alive.
A fetus is a biological entity. A life — because it is alive.
A fetus is part of, and entirely dependent on, a woman’s body. She must have freedom to control the controllable processes of her own body, if “freedom” is to mean anything.
They are both true.The circle CANNOT be squared. The society, therefore, either sanctions the murder of the fetal person, or limits the freedom of women.
“Pro-choice” should acknowledge the killing. “Pro-life” should acknowledge its determination to enchain.
There is no natural solution that is moral, because in the end we are for sure biologically created mammals, but only maybe spiritual creatures.
Except in cases of rape, a woman has the freedom not to become pregnant — by abstaining from sex. When she has sex, she takes a chance on becoming pregnant.
As the author says, “However, this completely ignores the consequences of sexual behavior and the obligation of rational actors to accept responsibility for their choices. A child is not a randomly encountered other to whom we owe nothing.”
Is it moral to execute someone who has committed no offence?
True enough, but the dependency and “enchainment” is temporary (9 months or less)…termination of life is permanent. That should count for something.
Interesting that these same pro-choicers have no problem with the father being on the hook for 18 years of child support without any choice in the matter.
Oh, please. He made his choice when he jumped in the sack.
The hedonists among us want zero personal responsibility for their hedonism. As long as they get free sex and often, they could care less that they kill their own children in the worship of their autonomy. What a pity — for them — that the state still sees these ‘fathers’ as being financially responsible; oh, boo-hoo.
Also, fewer sluts would make for fewer abortions. Both sexes have abandoned virtue in pursuit of ‘fulfillment,’ only to find it all meaningless and soul-destroying.
VA Teacher: Sorry!
I misread your point about the hypocrisy of the left. I needed to vent my spleen, and your comment, which I only skimmed, was the spark that inflamed it.
Except in cases of rape, she made that choice as well. So, why does she have the only say in the completion of the pregnancy? Because it’s her body? The child has its own DNA. The child is a combination of BOTH parents. Shouldn’t BOTH parents have a say? Why not pay the unwilling mother upon delivery of a healthy baby? Perhaps she should have given deeper thought to the possible consequences of her actions. This is almost as disgusting as Ms. Fluke.
Or perhaps this is because secular reasoning in incapable of defining morality.
The Romans thought there was something wrong with the Jews because Jews (the Pharisees) considered infanticide was a crime. I think the best argument against abortion is secular (where do you put the line), but to determine that one should be prejudiced in favor of life comes from religion.
At the end, “do not murder” is not a “rational” law.
“Do not kill,” is not rational. “Do not murder,” is a major under pinning of a civilized society. Without said injunction depletion of the population could be an outcome.
Wow. I wrote something about abortion, and there is not one single snarky response, not one personal attack. That is refreshing, and I appreciate it. It says something good about the folks on this site.
I, perhaps unclearly, meant so-called pro-lifers should recognize that a fetus is indeed part of a woman’s body. The so-called pro-choicers should acknowledge that abortion kills a human being, one who happens to be in the earliest stage of normal human development; i.e., this is NOT a “potential human.”
They are both right. Speaking truth, especially about matters so profound, I’d say is a good thing.
Religion does not in and of itself condemn killing or murdering, abortion or otherwise. I only need to utter the word “Islam…; or how about Aztec or Inca? They had religion.
Seems to me that abortion exploded at the same time, more or less, as feminism. And the acceptance of feminism came about as a direct result of the inevitable invention of the birth control pill. Freed women up to have sexual partners, and not marry. If there was no pill, there would be no feminism. No feminism, much, much less sex without committed relationship. Thence, much less need for abortion.
In the end, we are sexual creatures, including born of sexual congress. We’d be an emotionally healthier culture if we took that reality seriously, meaning that an emotionally developed person having sex with an emotionally developed person generates a precious bond between the two of them.
I disagree that a fetus is “part of” a woman’s body… The fetus has different DNA, formed from the mother and father. The fetus is not considered part of the father’s body, but has an equal contribution from the father.
Yes, the fetus is dependent upon the mother’s body, but it is an entirely separate individual.
“She must have freedom to control the controllable processes of her own body, if “freedom” is to mean anything”
Agdree 100%…
Even when “she” was just a fetus…herself inside another body, she is still “herself” and accorded the rights due the personage person she is
Except that a fetus is not a part of the woman’s body. It is dependent on her, yes, but it is not a part of her body. Every part of a woman’s body is identifiable as such, scientifically–it has the same DNA. The fetus does not–it has unique human DNA, so it is its *own* body, it is not merely an organ of the woman. Which is why the woman should not be allowed to do with the fetus what she pleases–the fetus is NOT a part of her body, it is rather the body of a genetically unique human being.
“A fetus is a biological entity. A life — because it is alive.”
So is a fish.
But a fish has no potential for one day attaining human thought and experience.
Thought experiment: Suppose this were not true. Suppose somewhere a scientist developed a means by which the brain of any vertebrate could be enhanced to where it could think abstractly, and learn to communicate. Would it then be murder to kill a fish, instead of bringing the fish to the scientist for enhancement?
This is the kind of silliness that comes from moral relativism. We do not extend human rights to other species.
We do if we are Peter Singer.
Maybe we’ll one day discover vegetables all talk to each other through Gaia, a super intelligent entity that resides in the earth.
On the bright side, they concede that killing a person is killing a person. They just did not draw the conclusion a regular person who still had the part of the brain dedicated to empathy would have drawn. But I gotta admit, kill em all has some logic to it. Can we kill the professors first as a trial run? Just to make sure all this murder is ok business is valid before jumping in whole hog?
I agree. If there is any group of people who don’t need to be considered human, it would be this sort of bioethicist.
Thank you.
Don’t take Savulescu’s offer seriously. He qualified it in such a way that chances of a counter-argument puslished in his esteemed journal are minimal.
“The notion that birth is ‘more significant than any other change over the whole course of life, except death’ ignores ‘the radical biological and existential change’ known as conception.”
No, Mr. Hudson, Hsieh and Armstrong were not ignoring the radical change of conception. They acknowledge that a new life has begun at conception, of course. They are arguing that ‘personhood’ (and thus rights) begins when the new entity becomes biologically distinct and separate from its mother. As you yourself acknowledge, the debate is about ‘personhood and individual rights’ –when does an entity become a ‘person’ with rights.
You say, “Birth is a threshhold of development, not identity.”
Yes, but just because a new entity comes into being (even if it is genetically human), that doesn’t mean it is now a person with rights.
I believe that they are saying that it is only when it is capable of acting in a SOCIAL context (in relation to other human beings) that it could be said that it has RIGHTS (and thus treated as a person).
As you pointed out, an infant can observe things, reach out and grasp things, crawl toward a baby bottle, etc. It is a being that is physically distinct and separate from other entities and can selectively focus its attention on something and take action. A blastocyst, zygote, embryo, or fetus is completely contained in its mother’s womb and is utterly dependent on her bodily functions for even its own most basic biological functions (such as oxygen and nutrients). It clearly cannot act toward any goal.
An unborn embryo or fetus is, indeed, a living entity, but it cannot be rationally understood as a person with rights. The mother clearly IS a person with rights –with the right to plan out her own life and control her own body.
“I believe that they are saying that it is only when it is capable of acting in a SOCIAL context (in relation to other human beings) that it could be said that it has RIGHTS (and thus treated as a person).”
So an adult human wh cannot interact with others can be killed? Say he is concious but in totally paralyzed? In a coma? (Other possiblities come to mind.) That is the logical conclusion of your reasoning.
No, silly…
What Joelm is saying is, its SOCIETY from where our rights come to us.
Society, not (oh god!) GOD or anything natural or mystical.
Rights arent automatic, rights are a SOCIAL(ist) thing…other folks have to feel you deserve them, see?
Society decides who is, and who isnt a “person”, alright?
So smarten up mzk1, and stay POPULAR with the elite big word/concept/theory makers, or else you might find yourself declared a “non-person” by them imortant smart folks who decide that stuff for us, see?
Sheesh, dont you get it?
Root, try not being a moron. You’re not helping your side.
My side doesnt need any help.
Its your side that needs (subsidized) Professors and Theorists to sell infanticide as morally neutral.
The Leaches, telling US, that WE are expendable.
Quite laughable until one realizes its not parody.
These publicly funded braniacs actually believe in such nonesense.
While the rest of us simple (and amazingly self-sufficient?) folks know simple good from pure evil without much debate required…..
Some things we hold as “self evident” as the story goes.
So why dont you apply for another Grant?
You’ll most likely starve to death trying to make an honest living.
Fine points. But you (and about everybody else, as far as I can tell) dance around what may be the central issue: Is personhood inherent or contingent? That is:
Is being a person inherent in the thing itself, whatever its stage of development?
Or is being a person contingent on something outside the thing itself? That is, does someone else (or a group of someones) decide whether or not the thing is a person?
If personhood is contingent, then it is no more legitimate to decide the thing isn’t a person until born than to decide the thing isn’t a person if someone else owns it. Same principle, different contingencies.
The Oxfordian’s razor is no more moral than one that designates slaves as non-persons. And no less arbitrary.
Perhaps it is morally acceptable for a woman to kill (or pay someone else to kill) her child, a person. Just don’t pretend it isn’t a person she is killing. If any human’s personhood is contingent, then so is yours, and you have no absolute claim to any protection.
On our tour of Pompeii, the ancient Roman sea port – play ground of sailors, I was struck by the tour guides’ ancient word for slave (the vast percentage of people). The Romans called them, “a thing with feet”. Throughout history, there has been a common human behavior by all murderers. It is imperative that the victim not be seen as a human being; they must be considered as a nonhuman thing. Gestapo soldiers could not remain sane unless they viewed their inmates as things. The Japanese torturers called their victims “logs”. You can not make a lamp shade from human skin unless you think this way. You can not buy and sell mothers separately from their children unless you consider this simply commodity trading. Only then can you balance “burden” versus inherent rights. Only then can you publish a learned paper in an ethics journal which posits the legitimacy of killing a baby, then defend this decision as a valid basis for intellectual debate.
The purpose of science is to know. This presupposes a knowledge of a good; the knowledge of murder have no value. It follows that these PhDs are not scientists; must not implicitly carry the connotation of learned people, but the loathing and revulsion of the criminally insane. If an innocent child has no inherent right to live, then no one does.
It gives some scale to ponder that since WWII, more people have been violently killed than the murders summed through all human history to that time. Such a paper could not have been written in any other age.
This is not new. We just read the Book of Esther on Purim; Haman, the Persian Prime Minister who wanted to wipe out the Jews, said he would raise money from “those doing the work”. These sort of euphemisms go way back.
Obama’s “science” czar has written books that make the case for FORCED abortions (see “Ecoscience” paragraph heading “Individual Rights”). At what point are these psychoradicals going to take it upon themselves to start eliminating people who in their eyes are not worthy of living, you know for the good of the human family. Are they going to start with Margaret Sanger’s recommendation and go after the “negroes” (her words) or perhaps Eric Holder could just use his power to kill American citizens and go after Derek Bells not so favorite people. The slippery slope is looking more like a cliff these days.
Life without God inescapably leads to this mindset.
The unborn and newly born humans are most certainly not “capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” They are innocents and that is why they are owed protection from humans who do understand that death is a loss of existence. Are the ethicists also saying that anyone who lacks understanding of their existence is not entitled to life? Does that include mentally impaired, those who develop dementia, those in comas?
From Objectivist perspective, an infant gains Individual Rights and protection from the Govt. from the moment he is born. Killing of an infant is murder.
The moment of birth is the entry point into an infant’s *legal* rights because there is now no conflict with rights of the woman who now becomes a mother.
Birth is the time when a fetus undergoes a process of biological, organic individuation and begins to live/breathe independently using his own bodily functions This is perceptually evident.
But the main thing to note on this discussion is that late-term abortions are rare…any rational woman or couple makes a decision on that way before. Late-term abortions, if they happen, can be immoral but shouldn’t be illegal.
1. It only took one ultrasound to know that I would have fought to the last breath to save my unborn child. No savage animal in the wild could compare.
2. You assert that a person gains individual rights and protection from the government the moment he is born, correct? Let me get this straight. You are saying that the government bestows upon individuals their rights at birth? Fascinating. I would love to hear your definition of “government” and “rights.”
I did not imply that Govt. bestows “rights” on an infant. Every human being has “moral rights” by the virtue of being a human being – by what is required by a human being to survive and live.
In a social context we form Governments to protect these rights and thus we have *legal rights*.
The point is that it is at birth that a fetus becomes a child, becomes an individuated human being from a potential human being.
I agree with Ayn Rand that “Since Man has inalienable individual rights, this means that the same rights are held, individually, by every man, by all men, at all times. Therefore, the rights of one man cannot and must not violate the rights of another.”
Preventing Abortions *legally* (and pl. note more often they happen early in the pregnancy and NOT all are late-term) is the violation of rights of the pregnant woman who does not choose motherhood.
Can a woman who does not want motherhood be persuaded not to opt for an Abortion? and instead seek a home for her child? offer teh child up for adoption? sure…but it is not the purview of the Govt. – Her family, associations, communities, church etc. can try and convince her by reasonable arguments – but neither she nor her doctor are criminals if she decides otherwise.
Thank you for the clarification. However, I disagree with your notion that rights are only activated at birth. If there is such a thing as protecting the weak from harm, and if the social contract does not abrogate the individual’s responsibility for making the distinction between expediency and propriety, then it is unsupportable to qualify life on a technicality. There is either a life at stake or there is not.
Ayn Rand’s statement is nonsense if you take the time to pick apart its syntax. What Rand states clouds the issue. How can a right, being equally active in all people, violate itself? It cannot. Or can one right trump another? It cannot, or at least not in the way she phrases it. What she means to express is that, in your quest to actualize your rights by securing your own interests, you cannot hinder others from doing the same thing. But the manner by which you secure a right is not a right per se. You cannot pit the mother’s right to personal freedom against the right of a child to have a chance at life without bridging the gap, which is done by actions. Thus, it is not the rights themselves which are being judged but instead the actions which are being performed to secure those rights. A woman may indeed have the right to do as she will with her body but only up to the point at which her actions do not violate the rights of another, namely her unborn child.
I do not believe that a fetus that lives inside a woman’s womb is an actual human being. And this is where our disagreement lies. Yes, it is alive and yes, it has a genetic make-up of a human being but so does every cell of a human body – but we do not say scratching our skin is murder.
I can understand people who are against late-term abortions – the fetus at that point resembles very closely a born child (but most abortions do not happen at that point)…but when most argue to make *any* abortions illegal it is usually based on religious beliefs and evasion of the fact that women have right too to Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness.
Sorry didn’t mean my reply previous reply to be Anonymous
You know not of what you speak. A fetus is fully formed (having all organs, ten fingers and ten toes) by three months, and from thence only grows in size and strength.
“SPOILER: babies don’t come from this guy.” Wha- What??!! Mind = blown.
Where Hitler and his National Socialist followers get their murderous ideas from? They didn’yt dream them up themselves. The were influenced by a whole generation of academics. I wonder when “the men of action” will come to power who will implement these Oxford academics ideas?
If you have a few minutes, I think you’ll be inspired by the story of one of those people that the post-birth abortionists would do away with. http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=9xwCG0Ey2Mg
“The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.”
George Washington
Leaving aside the complacent barbarism of the “ethicists”, the irony is that the whole issue of protection of life of a fetus arose first in England. The prevailing view was that the fetus was not “life” until the fetus had “quickened”, i.e., was capable of living on its own outside the womb. Clearly these progressive social scholars now think even that definition is outmoded. The baby must have quickened and have some productive purpose. How far a step is it from this to deciding whether a given person’s life is productive, regardless of age? Does it apply to a 4-year-old? A 10-year-old? People of these fellows’ age?
Quickening was not viability, but rather when the fetus could first be observed to move (they didn’t have ultrasound or any other means of observing how pregnancy worked, so quickening was the first sign of life indicating conception had actually taken place). No one imagines that a fetus of 40 days is viable outside of the womb with even today’s technology, let alone medieval technology.
The Nazis started with deformed children.
If you live by the sword you die by the sword, which merely means you have no complaint if fall to your chosen tools.
Here was have ethic of comfort and expedience. Once you go down that path you have no complaint if you are on the receiving end. What if someone decides that the world would be better without those who made this cruel proposal?
The problem is self-correcting if only because the people who like the reasoning will act on it, limited their numbers, if not leading to extinction.
THE PLAIN TRUTH on Abortion by Judge Napolitano 1/23/12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvjE5e02WE8&feature=player_embedded#!
Well, at least they’re taking their beliefs to their logical conclusion. I couldn’t disagree with them more, but it is clear to me that we’re starting from fundamentally different places.
This is where Solomon’s wisdom has to take hold: Nobody wants to walk home with half of a baby. Well, perhaps they do, but… Oh, Wait…
They now feel that society has degenerated, or in their twisted imaginations, is enlightened, enough for them to openly espouse what they previously plotted in secret.
Their logic is correct and with a deplorable reality that all of this killing is disgusting and abominable. It shows the fallacy of justifications for abortion in the first place, though I seem to doubt that was the intent of their statement.
Somehow, I bet they are for maintaining laws against harming some endangered species’s eggs and preventing executions for capitol crimes. So much for their logic.
Thank you Mr Hudson – scary post. The one line that really got my attention:
“… that children are an undue “burden” to their parents is the abortionist argument that the unborn are not really individual human beings or persons.”
The words “children” and “parents” can just as easily be swapped to achieve the same effect for old people like me. These people are sick.
Dear Wisething2do,
You convinced me. You are right. Fetus has its own DNA. Not part of the mother’s body. Thanks.
if there is no difference in moral value between the born and the unborn, it is obviously immoral to have one standard of punishment for a crime against the born and a different standard for the same crime against the unborn. If there is no difference in moral value between the born and the unborn, a woman who pays a doctor to give her an abortion ought to be treated the same way as someome who hires a hitman to kill another man.
i don’t even think randall terry is willing to call for the death penalty for women who undergo abortions, he illogically calls instead for going after abortionists.
This is identical to Obama ‘s support of the murder of fetuses that had survived abortions: his most infamous position as a State Senator.
Infants used to die natural deaths but many are now kept alive by using new medical techniques. I’m not sure that is wise. I have read that many are very seriously handicapped and, for some, life isn’t very good. The medical bill for some must be monumenal. A baby was born in a hospital near me…..without a brain or the back of its skull. The mother, who already had 4 children….each by a different father……insisted the baby be kept alive because of her religion. After being kept in the hospital for weeks and weeks, the baby was moved to a ‘nursing home’ where he/she eventually died from a lung problem. To me, this is a huge waste of money and medical facilities. Those funds could better be used for investigating illnesses such as juveile diabetes.
You sound like Scrooge before his conversion. “Decrease the surplus population,” and all that. What makes the juvenile diabetics any more deserving of our resources than the crippled? Are you a diabetic? Or is one of your close relatives? Yes, of course caring for the disabled will increase their number (because it increases their survival rate), and yes, they may never be able to pay us back, so what? Donate to the charity hospitals anyway. “The poor you will always have with you,” says the Lord.
While I did not read this article in full, I did read the paper itself (and Savulescu’s defense of his publishing it). One thing that particularly struck me was the authors’ rejection of adoption as a viable option pre-birth or after-birth. Their reasoning was that the mother, an actual person, as opposed to the infant, a non-person, might experience future harm knowing there’s an actual person out there who belongs to her, but to whom she will never have access. So, even a possibility of a mother’s psychological “harm” trumps the life of an infant. And it’s a future harm because when it comes to the disposal of a non-person, no foul, no harm.
I haven’t been over there since it was first published, but at the time I was very impressed with the tone and quality of the comments that followed it. It appears this business of “after-birth” abortion is almost universally rejected.
This article goes in the wrong direction, waving its hands in alarm. “The philosophical defense of individual rights requires an uncompromising affirmation of human identity from conception until death. Otherwise, you can bet the academics won’t stop at killing newborns.” This is merely asserted without argument. Practical reasons are given, such as that liberal academics will continue in their Sangeresque eugenics program. But that is only a reason to pretend to espouse the author’s view, not a reason to believe that personhood starts at conception. One could also propose that the night air is bad for the health on the grounds that believing this will decrease people’s tendency to venture out at night and therefore reduce nocturnal muggings and other assorted mishaps. But this wouldn’t be a reason to believe it was true that night air is bad for the health.
In fact, the Michael Tooley-style view of abortion espoused by the academics is correct inasmuch as:
“If abortion is permissible, then infanticide is permissible.”
…is its background premise. There is no relevant difference between the fetus (at least after the first trimester) and an infant. The Tooley-type view bites the bullet, accepts that infanticide is permissible, and tries to vindicate the view that infanticide is permissible by showing that it flows from the concept of personhood.
The only alternative to the Tooley-type view is to accept that abortion is impermissible (at least in the second and third trimesters when there is no relevant difference from the infant.) There is no other alternative mode of argument. Either the Tooley-type view or a pro-life view. (The “it’s my body” Judith Jarvis Thompson view is a non-starter because that being your child you have a duty to care for it and not kill it.)
Now, the pro-life view may be defended by just the very kind of explication of personhood that Hudson eschews. One can show that the concept of personhood applies to the fetus and to the infant, just as it applies to a man taking a nap or a man in a coma. I leave that to the reader as an exercise.
At least that is an argument. Hudson doesn’t have one.
Elderly take note, you’re next. Handicapped? I’d start being concerned. I won’t articulate where this will end, but be sure to check out a few of the classic dystopian science fictions films for a hint.
Perhaps we SHOULD practice after birth abortions. We start with Oxford academicians and Democrats.
To reiterate: The ancient Hebrews were told not to worship fertility and not to put a child to Moloch. Ghehena (which is one of the names of Hell) was the field outside Jerusalim where the Cannanites sacrificed babies to Moloch. (This is supported by archeology–Jars with burnt infants have been found there.)
Other societies judged neonates and were shocked that this behaviour was forbidden to Jews.
4000 years later we’ve come full circle. We worship Gaia (ecology as preached is profoundllyl anti human) Eugenics is preached. Margret Sanger once lectured to the Ku Klux Klan. The Nazis first went after inmates in mental hospitals as “Life unworthy of Life.”
It’s not clear that people would still reject concentration camps. Let’s remember Bosnia,Barundi and Darfur.
I have been saying for some time that there is no biological difference between a baby just before birth and just after, especially if the baby is born premature. These egg-heads are simply taking their beliefs to the logical conclusion one would draw when completely devoid of any moral principles.
We seem to be going full circle back to the attitude of the ancient Romans. The Romans thought a baby didn’t become a person with all the rights of a person, such as rights existed in that day, until it acquired the ability to speak and carry on a conversation: at approximately 2 1/2 to 3 years of age. So this doesn’t really end their dilemma: why stop with a newborn? Why not an older child as well? When does a person become a person?
Academics aren’t really people. They live an artificial existence coddled by tenure. Support academicide on demand. My mind, my choice.
I did not imply that Govt. bestows “rights” on an infant. Every human being has “moral rights” by the virtue of being a human being – by what is required by a human being to survive and live.
In a social context we form Governments to protect these rights and thus we have *legal rights*.
The point is that it is at birth that a fetus becomes a child, becomes an individuated human being from a potential human being.
I agree with Ayn Rand that “Since Man has inalienable individual rights, this means that the same rights are held, individually, by every man, by all men, at all times. Therefore, the rights of one man cannot and must not violate the rights of another.”
Preventing Abortions *legally* (and pl. note more often they happen early in the pregnancy and NOT all are late-term) is the violation of rights of the pregnant woman who does not choose motherhood.
Can a woman who does not want motherhood be persuaded not to opt for an Abortion? and instead seek a home for her child? offer teh child up for adoption? sure…but it is not the purview of the Govt. – Her family, associations, communities, church etc. can try and convince her by reasonable arguments – but neither she nor her doctor are criminals if she decides otherwise.
Hmmm, I posit that Oxford academics who are incapable of attributing value to the existence of a newborn baby are not human and thus can be, and should be, deprived of their existence.
well of course the atheists and statists would have to argue that to maintain some small consistency in their evil argument.
this is nothing new. the serpent speaks as he spoke to adam through eve.
Some people here are beginning their arguments at the wrong point. Always, without exception, we MUST start with the Word of God. Then there will be no problem in finding the answers to the questions which plague modern society. God’s Word tells us that Y’shua was instrumental in the creation. The very same Y’shua that gave His life to pay for our sins. What do Yahweh and Y’shua say about human life? God owns the universe, the world, and everything in them. It is He therefore who makes the rules by which we are to live. we MUST begin with God’s Word. There is no such thing as a neutral position, for God has left us with only 2 possible positions. We are either FOR God or AGAINST Him.God Himself tells us the consequences of both choices; Choose wisely, and choose LIFE!
Isn’t it funny how the very people who wail over the killing of a baby seal have no compunction about killing a baby human.
Given that killing a newborn or a toddler is murder, I argue that killing the child who is close to birth is also murder. I further believe that killing an unborn child at six months gestation is murder. Or at three months. Maybe two. I don’t know when a child becomes a child. Maybe it’s at the moment of conception, but that’s just a guess.
My question is how can we stand by and watch this murder taking place in our midst without doing anything to stop it? If a person other than the mother were to try to intentionally kill a baby which had been born or a baby which was due to be born in a matter of hours (or days, or months), any concerned citizen would be morally and legally justified in preventing that murder…by whatever means necessary. Why would a person who knew that a child was being killed in an abortion clinic not be justified in (and have the moral duty to prevent) that killing? There is no reason why one circumstance is protected and one is not.
I argued about abortion for years, but no longer. The issue has been reduced to the absurd, and I will no longer argue. Argument means nothing in this circumstance. I personally cheer for those brave individuals who take it upon themselves to forcefully prevent the murder of children. I don’t engage in that brave fight because I am afraid of prison or the death penalty. But, nothing prevents me from acknowledging the truth as I see it.