# Medical ethicists: sure, it's ok to kill babies. "After-birth abortions". **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 2, 2012, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527 "2012-03-02T06:57:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/1 "2012-03-02T06:57:48Z")
> **[Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html)** > > Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued. > [@](#): > > Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued. > … > 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’. > … > 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”. Ah the logical conclusion of the “freedom to choose”. Hey - if it’s a parasite, you get it out, look at it then squash it, right? Or, as Dr. Stammers in the article expressed it: “What these young colleagues are spelling out is what we would be the inevitable end point of a road that ethical philosophers in the States and Australia have all been treading for a long time and there is certainly nothing new.” ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/2 "2012-03-02T08:50:10Z")
I must say, although I deplore and abominate the fact that the authors of this paper have been getting death threats, the ingenuous “golly gee, we were only haveing a theoretical academic debate and suddenly all these folks are mad at us” flavour of their responses to the controversy makes me want to dope slap them with a wet zucchini. Dudes, you’re putting forth the argument that parents should be able to kill newborns. In a world where a British woman was sent numerous death threats for putting a cat in a wheelie bin,_what did you THINK would happen?_ I haven’t been able to find out where to read the entire paper yet, but I’ve also seen no indication that they address the main difference between abortion and infanticide, which is of course the whole “parasite in the mother’s body” argument (coincidentally, one of the most fundamental planks of the pro-abortion viewpoint). So where they get “it’s just the same” from beats me, not that I’m in favour of aborting 36 week old fetuses in the first place. I hope they didn’t get any public funding for this paper. I certainly hope they don’t get any again. ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/3 "2012-03-02T09:09:36Z")
It’s the logical consequence of defining a person this way > [@](#): > > “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.” I don’t agree with this definition of person so dismiss their conclusion. This is almost trolling isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/4 "2012-03-02T15:20:05Z")
I would have thought a group of professional ethicists would recognize a strawman argument when they make one. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/5 "2012-03-02T15:25:14Z")
I’m waiting for an explanation of why I am supposed to care. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/6 "2012-03-02T15:29:04Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I’m waiting for an explanation of why I am supposed to care. Because it can be used to portray people who support the right to an abortion as evil baby killers, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/7 "2012-03-02T15:37:24Z")
\*I \*think parents should be able to kill their children up till their 18th birthday. “Get a job and start bringin’ in some money, Kevin, or we’re _eatin_’ ya.” ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/8 "2012-03-02T15:41:41Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > \*I \*think parents should be able to kill their children up till their 18th birthday. “Get a job and start bringin’ in some money, Kevin, or we’re _eatin_’ ya.” I can very clearly remember my father arguing that abortion should be legal until the kid is 5. This caused me some concern because my brother was 4.5 at the time. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/9 "2012-03-02T15:53:48Z")
I don’t think they’re entirely wrong, biologically and legally speaking. But since my political/ethical prochoice stance is tied to viability of the fetus and the ability/willingness for someone other than the mother to care for it if she wants it removed from her body, I’m not going to lose much sleep over it. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/10 "2012-03-02T17:38:52Z")
> [@BetsQ](#): > > I can very clearly remember my father arguing that abortion should be legal until the kid is 5. This caused me some concern because my brother was 4.5 at the time. Eh, you didn’t really need to worry, unless your brother had a protracted case of the Terrible Twos. After the kid turns 4 or so, most people can easily handle him/her until the Terrible Teens. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/11 "2012-03-02T17:52:32Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > \*I \*think parents should be able to kill their children up till their 18th birthday. “Get a job and start bringin’ in some money, Kevin, or we’re _eatin_’ ya.” "My father established our relationship when I was seven years old. He looked at me and said, ‘You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out. And it don’t make no difference to me, I’ll make another one look just like you.’ " -Bill Cosby ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/12 "2012-03-02T17:53:40Z")
I don’t care about abortion, but anyone in this thread who agrees and thinks its cool to kill a full term newborn. YOU THINK ITS OK TO KILL BABIES! Please step back and rethink your opinions 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/13 "2012-03-02T17:56:17Z")
> [@](#): > > “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.” I don’t think that my three-year-old is capable of that sort of analysis about her own life, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a person. ---
**Author:** ![FlyByNight512](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/82dd89/32.png) [@FlyByNight512](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyByNight512)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/14 "2012-03-02T18:30:59Z")
> [@](#): > > “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.” > 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”. Their definition of ‘person’ is wacky. It’s not a person unless it’s aware of its own existence and future? Hey, then corporations aren’t people after all! And neither are the demented or the severely handicapped. When it comes to the question of murder, the law has always seen the mentally aware and the non-aware as equally human. If anything it’s MORE morally reprehensible to kill someone who is dependent on other people. They’d be overturning a massive amount of history to try to rewrite that. Their conclusion is even stranger. I don’t know in what universe not being aware of harm is morally the same as not actually being harmed. Again, criminal law has certainly never looked at it that way. ---
**Author:** ![Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ed655f/32.png) [@Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crown_Prince_of_Irony)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/15 "2012-03-02T18:43:44Z")
I’m not sure I want to even step into this one, but it seems to me that the authors are using the platform of a respected peer-reviewed science journal to troll on the right to choice/life issue. If they seriously believe that it’s morally ok to kill an unwanted baby (or even a baby with a disability), then they are odious people who should not be seen as representing the pro-choice movement in any way shape or form. But most likely, they are some hotshot young PhDs that want to make waves, and don’t care who gets bent out of shape, or what kind of fallout results. And after searching on the authors, I found this [blurb](http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/event/1167) published last month about one of them on the Oxford Martin website (scroll down to Biography): > [@](#): > > Alberto Giubilini recently obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy-Bioethics from the University of Milan. Previously, he was Visiting Student at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Philosophy. His main research interest is in bioethics and, in particular, in the ethics of medical end-of-life decisions, about which he published a book (in Italian) entitled “Morals in the Time of Bioethics. Sense and Value of Autonomous Choice” and this [blurb](http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/event/1199) about another: > [@](#): > > Francesca Minerva’s main area of research is practical ethics (medical ethics, the ethics of genetics, human enhancement, new form of reproduction, conflicts between secular and religious ethics). She graduated in Philosophy (summa cum laude) from the University of Pisa and obtained a PhD in “Law, New Technologies and Bioethics” from the University of Bologna in 2010. She is a research associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. She will start a post-doc at the University of Melbourne (at CAPPE) in June 2011 (McKenzie Fellowship). So, two young, newly minted Italian PhDs (one with a Philosophy focus), looking to make waves in the bioethics field. Shame on the Journal of Medical Ethics for giving them the platform to promote what is essentially an abstract philisophical debate on human worth, and which has no practical real-world value either to doctors or patients. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/16 "2012-03-02T18:44:41Z")
I agree with after-birth abortions. I saw the placenta as it emerged and I wanted to kill it with fire, then nuke it from orbit just to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/17 "2012-03-02T19:21:30Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I haven’t been able to find out where to read the entire paper yet, but I’ve also seen no indication that they address the main difference between abortion and infanticide, which is of course the whole “parasite in the mother’s body” argument (coincidentally, one of the most fundamental planks of the pro-abortion viewpoint). So where they get “it’s just the same” from beats me, not that I’m in favour of aborting 36 week old fetuses in the first place. They sidestepped that issue because it is irrelevant to the argument they are making. They are trying to determine a moral judgement based upon some “mental capacity” argument as the basis for definition of _personhood_. By that standard, whether or not the fetus/baby can survive outside the womb or serves as a parasite is immaterial. They run into the problem of defining just what it means for someone to “attribute to her own existence some basic value such that being deprived of it is a loss to her”. What constitutes a loss? What constitutes awareness of that loss? Where on the spectrum do, for instance, pets fit? And most fittingly, that definition loses a clear line for some nebulous line that cannot be defined consistently. At what point does the baby achieve enough awareness that death becomes a loss? Is it 2 years? 5 years? Does it vary between people, so you need some sort of aptitude test after 6 months to determine if it is okay or not? Nevermind the sanity of their argument, the practicality of it is ridiculous. > [@martu](#): > > This is almost trolling isn’t it? It is academics pondering the philosophy of medical ethics and how those decisions are made. It is a far distance from being implemented as any kind of policy. At this point, it is a “think piece”. “Here’s a new argument, what do you think? Does it make sense? If not, why not? Where is the flaw?” > [@Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](#): > > If they seriously believe that it’s morally ok to kill an unwanted baby (or even a baby with a disability), then they are odious people who should not be seen as representing the pro-choice movement in any way shape or form. But most likely, they are some hotshot young PhDs that want to make waves, and don’t care who gets bent out of shape, or what kind of fallout results. If anything, one could argue they are pro-lifers doing a slippery slope argument to show how preposterous they think Pro-Choice position is. But I don’t think that’s the case. But I certainly wouldn’t think any sensible person thinks they represent the Pro Choice position. (I’m not saying some Pro-lifers won’t make that accusation, I’m saying they would be unreasonable to do so.) > [@](#): > > Shame on the Journal of Medical Ethics for giving them the platform to promote what is essentially an abstract philisophical debate on human worth, and which has no practical real-world value either to doctors or patients. Is that not the purview of this Journal, as a peer-review community for medical ethics arguments? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/18 "2012-03-02T19:29:43Z")
Some people would consider that a fetus is not viable until has graduated from school and has a job. That, like this paper, is irrelevant to rational discussion. It’s one thing to raise the question, it’s another to _conclude_ that killing newborns is the equivalent of an abortion. ---
**Author:** ![Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ed655f/32.png) [@Crown\_Prince\_of\_Irony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crown_Prince_of_Irony)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/19 "2012-03-02T20:11:05Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Is that not the purview of this Journal, as a peer-review community for medical ethics arguments? Perhaps one can argue that it is not the job of a peer-reviewed journal to filter out content, but rather let the cream rise to the top, so to speak - but the fact is that papers get rejected by journals all the time. At the end of the day, any respectable peer-reviewed journal needs to exercise some editorial rigor in the decision to publish a paper - this reads like an amateurish piece of community-college-philosophy-class agitprop. One other possibility exists - they may be pulling a bit of Swiftian satire, and yanking the chains of both the pro-life and pro-choice camps, with what to the authors might seem a rapier wit. But again, that’s not what a peer-reviewed journal is for. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527/20 "2012-03-02T20:51:43Z")
The only justification for abortion that I have come by is that the fetus is dependent on the mother’s body and the mother has the right to refuse that. That refusal requires the death of the fetus. That does not apply to a newborn. Though the argument made in the OP IMHO is more destructive to abortion rights then anything else. It removed the woman from the reason for the right and places it solely on the baby. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-ethicists-sure-its-ok-to-kill-babies-after-birth-abortions/614527.md?page=2)