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Posted on 03/10/2012 5:52:23 AM PST by IbJensen
The culture of death is again attempting to rationalize infanticide with a kinder, gentler euphemism they call “after-birth abortions.” The central tenet of this latest approach revolves around the relativist argument that if a child can be killed in the mother’s womb for reasons of convenience, then why not murder the child after it is born with the same rationale?
Two university students in Australia, Alberto Giubilini who attends Monash University in Melbourne, and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne, have written an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics titled “After-birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?” The abstract reads: “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.”[1]
Sadly, the Journal of Medical Ethics issued an unethical defense of this article by stating their purpose is not to present the truth, only well-reasoned arguments. “Many people will and have disagreed with these arguments. However, the goal of the Journal of Medical Ethics is not to present the Truth or promote some one moral view. It is to present well-reasoned arguments based on widely accepted premises. The authors provocatively argue that there is no moral difference between a fetus and a newborn. Their capacities are relevantly similar. If abortion is permissible, infanticide should be permissible. The authors proceed logically from premises, which many people accept to a conclusion that many of those people would reject.”[2]
If a journal’s purpose is not to present the truth and promote the correct moral view, exactly what is the purpose of any communication? Perhaps the Journal of Medical Ethics has not heard of the eighth commandment. It does not seem the Journal has heard of ethics for that matter which is by definition that branch of philosophy dealing with the rightness and wrongness of certain actions. Giubilini’s and Minerva’s construct is only “well-reasoned” if one accepts the poorly-reasoned arguments made to justify abortion, and conveniently, they seemed to have skipped over those in their haste to justify the murder of newborns for the sake of convenience. If one first accepts abortion, then to murder the child after it is born or even euthanize any one who is deemed non-productive or a burden to society should be permissible.
To comprehend the essence of this entirely absurd discussion, it is only necessary to understand that the unjust killing of human life is a mortal sin and can never be justified. Attempting to discuss the moral status, personhood or viability of a zygote, embryo, fetus, child, adolescent or an adult are arguments that have absolutely no grounds in this debate. The right to life does not depend on any of these considerations. Life does not begin; it is transmitted and no one has the God-given right to life to interrupt its development. Attempting to prove scientifically when the soul is infused or if moral status exists in the womb is entirely irrelevant.
If the Federal Supreme Court ruled that it were permissible to kill one’s neighbor if they caused one inconvenience, no sane man would agree with this law, however, if it were passed, no doubt some people would practice it. After accepting the initial incomprehensible premise, then why not extend the legality of killing to anyone that causes anyone any inconvenience? Why not call for murder on demand?
They're going to kill children one way or another, possibly up to age 15 if they don't turn out like their evil parents want. The Central Socialist Government is in back of this as well as every evil that befalls Americans.
The only clear bright line that stops it from happening here is that Constitutional Rights are conferred at birth.
I think they should be conferred at conception.
Actually, the article in question is very well reasoned.
IF one accepts their premise, then it is impossible to logically reject their conclusion.
IF it is morally acceptable to kill a near-term fetus, then there it no logical reason it is not equally acceptable to kill that same fetus after it is born.
Their having made this argument may actually help some to see why abortion is morally unacceptable.
Dick was a strange man, and his religious views were a strange form of Christianity, but he saw clearly where the "pro-choice" way of thinking was going to take us.
That is exactly the point that has started us on that slippery slope to now justify infanticide. Soon euthanasia for others burdensome on society like the elderly, the infirm, the mentally handicapped and those just deemed "inferior" will be similarly justified. This is exactly how the Nazis started their euthanasia program that lead to the holocaust.
I tell you the truth, That you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. John 16:20.
At some point, very soon, God is going to personally step in, vindicate evil, make wrongs right, and set up righteousness on the earth. I woke up this morning thinking of these words:
Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Revelation 22:20
It is kind of weird at the moment that the threat seems to go the other way right now. If you discipline your kid, it is them who call the “truck.”
Yet, there could be a time where parents, unable to control their own children due to government over regulation of parental rights, simply call the government to take care of them...
Kind of odd to think one will eventually lead to the other.
>> Their having made this argument may actually help some to see why abortion is morally unacceptable.
+1. I was going to make the same point but you made it first, and well.
It is only a short step from killing Jews...after all, they are only Jews!
It’s satire, right, this paper?
The malignant self-absorption of the left knows no limits. To them, whatever interferes with their narcissistic, no responsibility lefestyle must go. They don’t like having old people around - euthanise them. Don’t like the inconvenience of pregnancy - abort them. Missed the chance for an abortion and the baby was born anyway - kill it. People disagree with your political views - [fill in the blank].
This could well be the greatest gift the abortionists could give the Pro-Life movement...
They’re exposing themselves for what they truly are, a cult of death. America is currently about 50/50 on the abortion issue, where even the vast majority of abortion supporters would be aghast at what is simply murder.
Mark
In the modern world, especially with the Obama regime and leftists in power, what would have been considered satire in the past is just the way things are now...
Other good examples are a department of agriculture with more employees than there are farmers, a speaker of the house who insists that unemployment compensation is good for the economy, and a secretary of the treasury who didn't pay his taxes.
Mark
Would the Journal print an article presenting well-reasoned arguments that the overall well-being of humanity would be advanced by having Socialists killed on sight? I could probably write a paper making a convincing case for that.
“The authors provocatively argue that there is no moral difference between a fetus and a newborn. Their capacities are relevantly similar. If abortion is permissible, infanticide should be permissible. The authors proceed logically from premises, which many people accept to a conclusion that many of those people would reject.”[2]
If there is no moral difference between a fetus and a newborn, then if infanticide is forbidden, then abortion should be forbidden by the same reasoning.
The Journal took down the article after the firestorm started. I wonder if the authors believed what they wrote, or were just emulating Swift's "A Modest Proposal", and were really pro-lifers seeing if they could pwn the Journal.
As we baby boomers grow into advanced age, I am anticipating that we will be presented with “options” to painlessly leave this earth before we become a burden on our families and society.
That was my take also. You expose the truth by taking the next “logical step”, or two. If you do that you can eventually argue that anybody that isn’t productive, or is drug addicted, disabled, handicapped, etc. can be killed without moral argument.
I’ve still never heard an answer to: when does a mass of cells become not a mass of cells? ...where the “mass of cells” argument is used to say abortion is fine.
So while the issue they raise is disturbing, especially the fact that it is even raised at all, I actually glad - it forces the discussion on life.
Quite. A human life begins at conception and ends at death, whether that death is 3 months or 100 years later. Assigning any particular date in this timeline as the point at which the life acquire or loses “legal personhood” is by definition arbitrary.
A huge problem in this discussion is the conflating of two unrelated terms. “Person” deserving of protection and rights and “human life.”
The first is a legal and moral concept. The second is a scientific concept. One cannot use science to determine when legal personhood begins. Science has nothing to say on the subject. For most of human history, only a few people were “persons” in the sense we use today, in many countries only one, the king.
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