After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? [Barf Alert, reminder, and warning to actual agenda]

Journal of Medical Ethics ^ | 2/23/12 | Alberto Giubilini

[markomalley]

Abstract

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue 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.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Killing a baby after it is born was suggested over forty years ago in a French Magazine.

[pax_et_bonum]

I’m wondering if some authors whose consciences are malformed are not actual persons but are only imperfectly formed potential persons whose presence in civilization is not always in the best interest of actual people.

[aquila48]

Bookmark

[Noumenon]

Why not make it legal to kill them until they can do algebra?

Or at least mow the lawn.

[LadyDoc]

this type of thinking has been around since the mid 1980s but few outsiders read medical journals so it was sort of hidden from the public. Some ethicists have made lists on criteria for personhood that would eliminate the mentally retarded, those with brain damage, the senile, and children under the age of two.

NIH Link

In his “Conditions of Personhood” essay, Dennett requires humans to have a certain level of intelligence (Dennett 1978, 267–85).

Without it or without a “sufficient” level of intelligence, a human being lacks personhood, and he argues thus that a fetus is not a person. Fletcher also argued for the criterion of intelligence in describing “humanhood” among his personhood criteria. In fact, he explicitly states exact, albeit arbitrary, intelligence quotient scores he believes necessary for personhood (Fletcher 1979, 7–19).

Other ethicists, like Callahan of the Hastings center, merely used these criteria to stop medical treatment for those whose quality of life is low.

a similar policy is used by the N.I.C.E. in England to ration medical care. N.I.C.E.UK

[NetAddicted]

OMG!

[DoodleBob]

When we decided to write this article about after-birth abortion we had no idea that our paper would raise such a heated debate.

“Why not? You should have known!” people keep on repeating everywhere on the web. The answer is very simple: the article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were already familiar with this topic and our arguments. Indeed, as Professor Savulescu explains in his editorial, this debate has been going on for 40 years.

We started from the definition of person introduced by Michael Tooley in 1975 and we tried to draw the logical conclusions deriving from this premise. It was meant to be a pure exercise of logic: if X, then Y. We expected that other bioethicists would challenge either the premise or the logical pattern we followed, because this is what happens in academic debates. And we believed we were going to read interesting responses to the argument, as we already read a few on this topic in religious websites.

However, we never meant to suggest that after-birth abortion should become legal. This was not made clear enough in the paper. Laws are not just about rational ethical arguments, because there are many practical, emotional, social aspects that are relevant in policy making (such as respecting the plurality of ethical views, people’s emotional reactions etc). But we are not policy makers, we are philosophers, and we deal with concepts, not with legal policy.

Moreover, we did not suggest that after birth abortion should be permissible for months or years as the media erroneously reported.

If we wanted to suggest something about policy, we would have written, for example, a comment related the Groningen Protocol (in the Netherlands), which is a guideline that permits killing newborns under certain circumstances (e.g. when the newborn is affected by serious diseases). But we do not discuss guidelines in the paper. Rather we acknowledged the fact that such a protocol exists and this is a good reason to discuss the topic (and probably also for publishing papers on this topic).

However, the content of (the abstract of) the paper started to be picked up by newspapers, radio and on the web. What people understood was that we were in favour of killing people. This, of course, is not what we suggested. This is easier to see when our thesis is read in the context of the history of the debate.

We are really sorry that many people, who do not share the background of the intended audience for this article, felt offended, outraged, or even threatened. We apologise to them, but we could not control how the message was promulgated across the internet and then conveyed by the media. In fact, we personally do not agree with much of what the media suggest we think. Because of these misleading messages pumped by certain groups on the internet and picked up for a controversy-hungry media, we started to receive many emails from very angry people (most of whom claimed to be Pro-Life and very religious) who threatened to kill us or which were extremely abusive. Prof Savulescu said these responses were out of place, and he himself was attacked because, after all, “we deserve it.”

We do not think anyone should be abused for writing an academic paper on a controversial topic.

However, we also received many emails from people thanking us for raising this debate which is stimulating in an academic sense. These people understood there was no legal implication in the paper. We did not recommend or suggest anything in the paper about what people should do (or about what policies should allow).

We apologise for offence caused by our paper, and we hope this letter helps people to understand the essential distinction between academic language and the misleading media presentation, and between what could be discussed in an academic paper and what could be legally permissible.

Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

It is just a thought experiment they cry!

No one should think less of us for suggesting killing other humans is ok as long as they have not reached a certain age.

We are just thinking about it.

Apparently they never philosophized about "Thought is the father to action".

[metmom]

I’ll tell you, what with the medical care I’ve gotten since moving to NH at an allegedly top notch medical center, I sure believe it.

I’ve asked for a physical twice, while being on Medicare, and it was just a ridiculous sit down chat with the doctor.

No blood panel, no urinalysis, no EKG, didn’t look in nose, throat, ears, test hearing, just a bunch of questions, mostly about mental health (my suspicion is so they can red flag you) and telling me to use an N95 mask.

I’ve seen more thorough well child check ups.

If something was wrong, they’d never catch it until it’s almost too late. It sure wouldn’t be caught at the early, easier to treat stage.

Sadly, there are not really any other options for healthcare than this extensive facility.

What’s really weird, is for the stuck in concrete doctors I have gotten stuck with , mr. mm has met some great, proactive and thorough ones. Go figure.

[markomalley]

I don’t buy their attempt to walk this back. I have seen novel/controversial ideas be posited in academic journals simply for the purpose of discussion and the thesis is ALWAYS listed as being for academic discussion only. That was not the case here.

Also, this is hardly the first time such a thesis was proposed. Michael Tooley has seriously proposed that personhood rights not be granted to a human until self awareness occurs...in his view, about 5 years of age. He advocated this position since the 1970s. For example here:
https://books.google.co.th/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gt86EAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=RA1-PA15&dq=info:BPDJNWi6fyQJ:scholar.google.com/&ots=BANmvOtHQK&sig=xVWpm5hrnuEqo0BARg9fJFPw09Q&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

For Giubilini and Minerva to exclaim mean culpa is utterly ridiculous. They got busted and are trying to weasel out of their position.

[midwest_hiker]

With all the lefts love affair with Socialism, if the party deems a parents Social Score too low, then it’s a forced abortion for them.
After all, it’s for the good of the state.

Like the Twilight Zone episode where if the state deems you not use full, you are executed

[chopperk]

The Administers may raise the post abortion age to age 18.

[Mark17]

Sadly, there are not really any other options for healthcare than this extensive facility.

It sounds like they couldn’t care less, whether you live or die. If you were a prison inmate, you would get the best health care, money can buy.

[joma89]

More proof that democrats want everyone dead.

[SisterK]

this coming from
The Journal of Medical Ethics

we learned all about medical ethics during 2020

[9YearLurker]

Beware anyone from a “Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics”.

[DoodleBob]

...and their "apology" is dripping with Sheldon Cooper-like arrogance, e.g. We're sorry you're too stupid to understand our fake apology.

We are really sorry that many people, who do not share the background of the intended audience for this article, felt offended, outraged, or even threatened.

[Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi]

Yes, the French.

It seems that every depraved idea and the underpinning of the woke philosophy had its origins in the maunderings of certain French “intellectuals” — most of whom were amoral idiots.

[deek69]

I agree it should be legal, But for the parents not the children.