I am not a mother. I am a teacher. Still, abortion makes me sick on a visceral level. So a few years ago, when my mom sent me a link to an academic ethics paper on abortion, I was horrified and intrigued by what was proposed. Both my mom and I knew that it was only the beginning. Infanticide has been a historical atrocity before, even in the vaunted origin of Western Culture (the Greek and Roman cultures), and infanticide will come around again.
Since I was unable to access the essay due to my living circumstances at the time, I tried to get as many quotes as I could, and I wrote up an infographic on a controversial essay that my mother sent me.
A few strong-minded academics broached the topic in a highly controversial essay: “After-Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?” by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.
Unfortunately, the essay was been taken down for a while (it has since then be put back up). Maybe because some people took umbrage to what they were suggesting. However there are still a few articles out there with quotes taken from the original piece.
… we need to assess facts in order to decide whether the same arguments that apply to killing a human fetus can also be consistently applied to killing a newborn human.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html
A good question – is killing a fetus the same as killing a baby just newly born? The writers suggest there is no difference if one simply assumes the arguments for most pro-late-term abortion positions.
In spite of the oxymoron in the expression, we propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide’, to emphasise 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. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html
They also go on to say:
… 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.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html
… Although fetuses and newborns are not persons, they are potential persons because they can develop, thanks to their own biological mechanisms, those properties which will make them ‘persons’ in the sense of ‘subjects of a moral right to life’: that is, the point at which they will be able to make aims and appreciate their own life.
… The alleged right of individuals (such as fetuses and newborns) to develop their potentiality, which someone defends, 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.
Of course, the folks who wrote the essay did not necessarily believe that “post-birth abortion” was in actuality a good or bad idea. Rather this was a paper written for an ethics journal intended to push the boundaries of moral questions.
The reaction from the general public shows us the same thing the Gallup poll showed us in 2018: late term abortion is not considered a good thing all around.
Telegraph’s article highlighted the essay’s main points as well as the public reaction to the release of the essay.
“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.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html
As such they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”.
The authors therefore concluded 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”.
They also argued that parents should be able to have the baby killed if it turned out to be disabled without their knowing before birth, for example citing that “only the 64 per cent of Down’s syndrome cases” in Europe are diagnosed by prenatal testing.
Once such children were born there was “no choice for the parents but to keep the child”, they wrote.
“To bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”
However, they did not argue that some baby killings were more justifiable than others – their fundamental point was that, morally, there was no difference to abortion as already practised.
The writers received death threats. Many might think the public overreacted, but perhaps it is because the emblem of a baby has huge weight in most cultures.
Although I personally find the idea repulsive, I can see the rationale behind their arguments and there is a rather scary logic to what they wrote. According to the pro-choice infogram, the mother’s right is justified by the fact that she chooses who depends on her for survival. Except in certain countries, like my own (Canada), third-trimester is allowed – and third-trimester fetuses can definitely “survive on their own”. So the justification for third-trimester fetuses needs to be something other than an issue of survival.
And yet… here we are… in 2019, seeing the acceptance of abortion up until dilation (and beyond in New York) allowed to happen… Why would this be allowed to happen? Would it be because the baby couldn’t live anyway, and the family just decided not to resuscitate? Or… is something more than the physical health of the mother or baby going to be taken into account…? Surely not…?
But yes… Even if the infant could live on its own, the senator implied (as above) that it would be allowed to die – comfortably – simply because the mother doesn’t want a child (even if it isn’t physically/mentally disabled).
Even more concerning the justification for late term abortion is being broadened.
In other words, the reason for abortions is being pushed to even broader terms of “mental health”, which is, in my opinion, a highly subjective thing to factor into a decision about another being’s life – particularly when it is on its way out into the world.
New York has legalized abortion up to birth, and beyond. It is now legal to neglect, choke, or smother a baby that somehow survived the lethal injection and knife cuts designed to kill during the abortion procedure.
To put a fine point on it, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Reproductive Health Act (RHA) on January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. This law legalizes abortion in New York throughout all nine months of pregnancy, even up to dilation. It repeals the safeguard requiring all abortions be performed by a licensed physician. It decriminalizes all state abortion laws, and it removes all rights and protections from the unborn by defining a “person” as “a human being who has been born and is alive.” Even this definition, however, is revoked for the child who is accidentally born alive.
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-reproductive-health-act-of-horror
I highly recommend watching the following video. Tim Pool does a great job introducing this issue which has just arisen. Notice how freaked out he is. Tim Pool is a center left, non-religious journalist… and he is freaked out. He can’t believe what he is seeing.
Read the comments to his video below:
Others who call themselves pro-choicers can’t help but notice that the slippery slope argument posed by religious conservatives years ago is finally coming to fruition.
So, yay for justification of infanticide and, while we’re at it I might as well add, euthanasia and forced removal of unnecessary burdens on society, like old people with no families, people with terminal illnesses and people who need any kind of regular medical aid for basic survival.
Don’t tell me this is a slippery slope fallacy argument. Slippery slope is only about arguments that connect two situations with no proof, but there is ample proof now – they wanted to “protect” women’s choices and abortion, but now they are going somewhere no one sane really wanted to go.
Thanks, Far Left, for showing us your true colours.
Also watch:
Dappled-Things 