# Should infanticide be legalised? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 1, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545 "2009-09-01T21:39:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/101 "2009-09-03T17:06:44Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > If the child is suffering and terminally ill, I think infanticide should be advocated. There’s a big difference between withholding care, letting someone die, and actually killing them. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/102 "2009-09-03T17:07:59Z")
Also, in the case of a child born with a terminal illness, it seems more a suicide/assisted suicide argument. Not a pro-infanticide article. It could apply to anyone, not just babies. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/103 "2009-09-03T17:24:35Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, perhaps a time will come when a woman who wants to end a pregnancy can call the cops, who will come over and taser the fetus, handcuff it, and take it to county to be booked on trespassing charges. Analogies are fine, but let’s not be silly with the cross-pollination. Besides, what a fetus is doing (though of course not intentionally) is hardly “peaceful”. Heh, in [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=529735) thread we discussed the hypothetical of “wombots” (incubators) that you could transfer early-term fetuses into. I wonder if the transferring docs would use tasers? Regardless, the analogy is what it is. Here’s what I’m seeing here: You: “The analogy shows I can kill the home invader.” Me: “No it doesn’t. Quite the opposite, really.” You: “Ignore that part of the analogy.” At best, this doesn’t help your argument. At worst it looks like you’re dismissing “evidence” (to use the term pretty much as loosely as possible). > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’d vaguely argue that a significant aspect of American society (arguably western society generally) still regards pregnancy as slightly icky and if you can take care of it behind closed doors and not, for heaven’s sake, make a SCENE about it, so be it. Yes. There are two camps. One group is okay with abortion, and one isn’t. They’re called “anti-life” and “anti-choice” respectively (:p) and probably some of the former do rely on ignoring abortions as a way to tolerate them. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > So far I’ve seen a lot scorn and choplogic, but nothing that gives me pause. I can dismiss your arguments as scorn and “choplogic” too, if you like, instead of just pointing out that they’re not argumentively compelling. Would it help? > [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Image the dude attached himself to you in such a way that detachment would cause his death. Do you have the legal right to shoot him. Hell, yes! I _seriously_ doubt this. Got caselaw? > [@Dangerosa](#): > > Although, if I get sick of my kids, I can’t call the cops and have them removed. (I’m pro-choice and the “parasite in MY body” thing is the reason why. I don’t give a damn if its human or not, I get to decide if someone gets to remain resident in my body). But if I get sick of my kids, I can make arrangements for someone else to care for them - the state may say I need to pay child support - support them with my property. I’m physically not able to do that with a fetus inside my body - but I think that the difference between supporting life with your property and supporting it with your body is significant. The “It’s my body and I evict guests with extreme predjudice” argument is not entirely without merit. It’s simply argumentively weak, particularly when weilded against anti-choicers. Like most ideological debates, it hinges on a difference of opinion. In this case, the opinon that a person has a right to kill the “baby” that they “asked for” just because it’s occupying that womb where it is “meant to be”. My argument for abortion hinges on a difference of opinion too - whether the thing being aborted is a “baby” at all. In either case the other side is arguing from a different premise than you. If you actually want to _win_ this debate, you have to change people’s belief in these underlying premises. And here’s where the “who will rid me of this turbulent fetus” argument fails - it is literally based on an opinion. You think the “baby” has no right to hang out in your body. They disagree. And there is no way to argue for this one way or another besides just _asserting_ that your opinion is correct. Now, I suppose _some_ minds have been changed by this approach, but I prefer to stick with my argument, where you can cite science to make the anti-choice position literally _absurd_. Sure, it won’t convince fundys, but it seems like a much clearer way to change law than to argue that people have a right to kill their children when they are temporarily inconveniencing them. > [@DianaG](#): > > I dunno, so far you’re 0 for 3 on vocab. Taking whatever measures are necessary to remove a foreign body from my own is not “using” that foreign body, and pointing out that “use” doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means is neither “dodging the issue” nor “splitting hairs”. > > For someone who claims to be pro-choice, your arguments are becoming increasingly hysterically focused on the selfish women who are just peachy keen with chopping up babies. The argument that using a person’s body to kill them isn’t “using” it is bullshit. Your dodging of it by arguing specious linguistics is bullshit. And your attempt to attempt to dodge that fact with more specious linguistics is further bullshit. I’ll leave it to the audience to decide who here is “hysterical”. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/104 "2009-09-03T17:39:27Z")
When one removes a tumor, is one “using” that tumor? I’m just curious. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/105 "2009-09-03T18:03:06Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > When one removes a tumor, is one “using” that tumor? I’m just curious. Yes. Now whatcha gonna do? The position you are advocating here is that it is horrifically bad to park in somebody’s womb for nine months, but it’s perfectly alright to kill a person. You are attempting to defend this bizarre position by very tightly focusing the set of “bad actions” on a definition of “use” that excludes the physical manipulations done to a fetus during an abortion. This is a game I’m not interested in playing. You may be of the opinion that it’s horrific to be required to carry a child to term, and you may be of the opinion that it’s a horrific on the part of the insensate fetus to have the audacity to grow in the body that spawned it. That’s fine. (Though the latter position _is_ rather odd). However I’m not going to let you get away with trivializing murder. (And this ain’t self defense - if that fetus is a person, then this is murder.\*) \*Fortunately for my position on the matter, of course, the fetus _isn’t_ a person until the latter stages of the game and is thus a perfectly legitimate candidate for use as hotdog filling until then. But if you _remove_ that fact from consideration, that changes the whole ballgame. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/106 "2009-09-03T18:11:03Z")
Bodily rights are pretty well established already, just as I already pointed out in this thread. You can’t be forced to donate blood. You can’t be forced to donate organs. You can’t be forced to donate them even once you’re dead. That makes it entirely reasonable to say you can’t be forced to donate a uterus. Not even when the result is death. Not even when the fetus is a person. Not even if the fetus is the baby Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/107 "2009-09-03T18:15:35Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Bodily rights are pretty well established already, just as I already pointed out in this thread. You can’t be forced to donate blood. You can’t be forced to donate organs. You can’t be forced to donate them even once you’re dead. That makes it entirely reasonable to say you can’t be forced to donate a uterus. Not even when the result is death. Not even when the fetus is a person. Not even if the fetus is the baby Jesus. And the rights of a child to care and support are also pretty well established, so the abortion issue is where these two sets of rules clash. I think we can’t cite abortion law to back up the merits of various proposed abortion laws for philosophical reasons, which leaves us debating what the rules _should_ be. Which leaves us mired in opinions. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/108 "2009-09-03T18:15:39Z")
I’d also like to note that I don’t change arguments so that mine are more compelling or nicer or tidier or beloved by other pro-choice people. You don’t like my arguments? Fine. You can get your own. But I’m not going to switch to yours so that you can feel better about it. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/109 "2009-09-03T18:18:21Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > And the rights of a child to care and support are also pretty well established, so the abortion issue is where these two sets of rules clash. Show me evidence of how abortion clashes with child support laws. You seem, frankly, just to be pulling things out of thin air, trying desperately to shout down a philosophical position you don’t like even though you claim to share the same goals. It’s weird. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/110 "2009-09-03T18:19:08Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I’d also like to note that I don’t change arguments so that mine are more compelling or nicer or tidier or beloved by other pro-choice people. You don’t like my arguments? Fine. You can get your own. But I’m not going to switch to yours so that you can feel better about it. As you like, I fervently hope your arguments don’t reach many ears. Because if they persuaded _me_ to base laws on them rather than the other pro-choice arguments, I’d turn anti-choice. So I can’t see them helping “our side” in any way. There’s nothing wrong with believing _both_ arguments, and arguing the one that works even if your dog in the fight is based on the other one, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/111 "2009-09-03T18:20:45Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Show me evidence of how abortion clashes with child support laws. Are you allowed to kill a child by reglecting to provide it the nutrients and environment it requires to live? (Or by killing it outright?) If not, whenever my kids are bad, I’m going to lock them in a cage in the backyard and forget about them. (It’s probably a good thing I don’t actually have kids.) ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/112 "2009-09-03T18:24:43Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Yes. > > Now whatcha gonna do? Marvel at your profoundly intellectually dishonest abuse of language? > [@begbert2](#): > > The position you are advocating here is that it is horrifically bad to park in somebody’s womb for nine months, but it’s perfectly alright to kill a person. You are attempting to defend this bizarre position by very tightly focusing the set of “bad actions” on a definition of “use” that excludes the physical manipulations done to a fetus during an abortion. This is a game I’m not interested in playing. > > You may be of the opinion that it’s horrific to be required to carry a child to term, and you may be of the opinion that it’s a horrific on the part of the insensate fetus to have the audacity to grow in the body that spawned it. That’s fine. (Though the latter position _is_ rather odd). However I’m not going to let you get away with trivializing murder. (And this ain’t self defense - if that fetus is a person, then this is murder). > > Fortunately for my position on the matter, of course, the fetus _isn’t_ a person until the latter stages of the game and is thus a perfectly legitimate candidate for use as hotdog filling until then. But if you _remove_ that fact from consideration, that changes the whole ballgame. Erm… I’m of the opinion that my body is mine, intended for my use and no one eles’s. I attribute no motives at all to the fetus, because that would be crazy. And it isn’t “personhood” that makes for murder. Anyone I happen to kill in self-defense is a “person”. You know, I can’t help but notice that you call it your “position” on the matter. Not your “feeling”, not your “belief”, not even your “opinion”. Just your “position”. You really haven’t thought this all the way through, have you? I mean, aside from settling on a “position” that you feel will be most palatable to the masses. You running for something? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/113 "2009-09-03T18:25:34Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Are you allowed to kill a child by reglecting to provide it the nutrients and environment it requires to live? (Or by killing it outright?) Yes, if it’s in your body. No, if it’s not. Child support doesn’t start before birth, so I’d say there is less than no conflict; there is actually agreement between child support laws and abortion laws. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/114 "2009-09-03T18:28:24Z")
All these debates are based on opinion. I’ve never heard a superior debate that makes logical sense to everyone - just points that speak to different people depending on what they are talking about. And I’ve never seen anyone in this debate swayed on REASON - its all about the emotion. Most people make their intellectual decision off emotion, not off reasoned debate. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/115 "2009-09-03T18:29:18Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Erm… I’m of the opinion that my body is mine, intended for my use and no one eles’s. I attribute no motives at all to the fetus, because that would be crazy. And it isn’t “personhood” that makes for murder. Anyone I happen to kill in self-defense is a “person”. Right. And your neighbor who dies from lack of your blood is a person. And your stepfather who dies from lack of your kidney is a person. They can be the most personable persons in the world, and they still don’t get to use our organs and tissues without our say so. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/116 "2009-09-03T18:43:36Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Erm… I’m of the opinion that my body is mine, intended for my use and no one eles’s. I attribute no motives at all to the fetus, because that would be crazy. And it isn’t “personhood” that makes for murder. Anyone I happen to kill in self-defense is a “person”. Right, though it sure _helps_ that it’s a person. What makes it not self-defense is that _the fetus isn’t trying to kill you._ I didn’t mention this because I thought it was amazingly obvious. > [@DianaG](#): > > You know, I can’t help but notice that you call it your “position” on the matter. Not your “feeling”, not your “belief”, not even your “opinion”. Just your “position”. You really haven’t thought this all the way through, have you? I mean, aside from settling on a “position” that you feel will be most palatable to the masses. You running for something? Wow, you’re _desperate_ to discredit me, huh? You must really think I’m argumentively kicking your ass to resort to this sort of desperate ad-hominem. My position isn’t based on namby-pamby feeling, belief, or opinion. It’s based on fact. It is a _fact_ that there is a point in development prior to which a fetus cannot be reasonably argued to be a person. And based on that **fact** , there is no decent argument for banning the abortion of these non-person things. Therefore, I oppose illegalizing the abortion, becuase when abortion isn’t murder there is no reason _to_ illegalize it, which allows the “it’s my body, dammit” argument to be relevent. > [@jsgoddess](#): > > Yes, if it’s in your body. No, if it’s not. This is, again, opinion. If we refrain from including abortion law, what is the basis of this assertion? > [@jsgoddess](#): > > Child support doesn’t start before birth, so I’d say there is less than no conflict; there is actually agreement between child support laws and abortion laws. Right, child support merely indicates that there is a legal sentiment in place against doing bad things to babies. The _real_ relevent law is the biblical one, you know, “Thall shall not kill”. In my part of the US, murder is illegal, and abortion flirts with _explicitly_ contradicting that. The fact that you aren’t legally compelled to give blood or a kidney is actually irrelevent, beucase the problem isn’t that you want to evict the baby, it’s that you (currently) have to kill it to do it. As has been noted, it’s not illegal to eject a tresspasser from your house; however, it _is_ illegal to kill them to accomplish this end unless they are _also_ threatening your life to a sufficent degree to justify a self defense defense. Which is to say, it’s not them being in your house that allows you to kill them at all, it’s the completely separate issue of them threatening you (which justifies killing them in the house or not.) The simple fact is, if that fetus is a person, then the law against murder applies unless subverted by other law. There is NOT other law that does this, aside from current abortion law. References to giving blood or child support are merely ways of pointing at the culture and what it generally expects of a person; they’re not legal arguments. The _legal_-based argument here is one of two things: it’s _already_ legal to kill fetuses 'cause it’s not murder (my argument), or it _should_ be legal to kill them because, dammit, it’s my body (your argument). One of the perks to my argument is that it avoids the ‘murder’ issue entirely and in _theory_ wouldn’t even require a change in law (though of course it does in practice). ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/117 "2009-09-03T18:57:57Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > This is, again, opinion. If we refrain from including abortion law, what is the basis of this assertion? The same fucking thing it’s been every fucking time I’ve said it. The same philosophy that says that you own your body parts even if you’re DEAD and that even if it will save lives you aren’t required to give them up even if you’re DEAD and can’t use them any longer because you’re DEAD. This isn’t a difficult concept. I doubt it’s even difficult for the DEAD to grasp it. You don’t have to agree with me, but stop acting like it’s such a bizarre thing that you can’t even wrap your head around it. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/118 "2009-09-03T19:01:45Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > The same fucking thing it’s been every fucking time I’ve said it. The same philosophy that says that you own your body parts even if you’re DEAD and that even if it will save lives you aren’t required to give them up even if you’re DEAD and can’t use them any longer because you’re DEAD. > > This isn’t a difficult concept. I doubt it’s even difficult for the DEAD to grasp it. You don’t have to agree with me, but stop acting like it’s such a bizarre thing that you can’t even wrap your head around it. And it’s still completely wrong, because there is a DIFFERENCE between not saving someone/something and actively KILLING it. It’s a FALSE equivalence. Do the allcaps help? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/119 "2009-09-03T19:08:55Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > And it’s still completely wrong, because there is a DIFFERENCE between not saving someone/something and actively KILLING it. It’s a FALSE equivalence. > > Do the allcaps help? Apparently they do. The only time there is a difference is if there is a way to remove the support without killing it. Currently, there is no medical way to do that so they are equivalent. Once there is a medical way to do that, then the question of what to do with the removed embryo/fetus is relevant. Until that point, there is no difference. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545/120 "2009-09-03T20:16:14Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Apparently they do. > > The only time there is a difference is if there is a way to remove the support without killing it. Currently, there is no medical way to do that so they are equivalent. Once there is a medical way to do that, then the question of what to do with the removed embryo/fetus is relevant. Until that point, there is no difference. Nonsense. To use an analogy, if I may: Suppose there is a fellow who has fallen off a cliff, and is hanging onto a branch a short way down. The branch will break soon and he will plummet to his death if not otherwise helped. You have a rope in your trunk. Is is murder if you don’t throw him the rope? Technically, no. It’s your rope, and you are not legally obligated to offer it to him. Of course some people will think you’re a jerk if you don’t throw it to him, especially since it was you horsing around on the cliff’s edge that knocked this guy off and put him in this position (accidentally of course, though you could have reasonably anticipated the possibility), but despite that it’s still not murder to keep your rope to yourself. Now, scenario 2: same guy, same cliff, except this time he’s already got hold of the rope, and is now hanging from it. You decide that it’s your rope, and you want it back. So, you pull out your gun and shoot him in the head, to make him let go. Is that murder? Is it less murder if it was the only way to get your rope back? (Other than waiting long enough for him to get himself off of it safely, that is.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-infanticide-be-legalised/508545.md?page=7)