Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say

Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say

This comes from a group of medical "*ethicists*" linked to Oxford University.

As wild as it sounds, they say newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”.

Apparently they wrote an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics and have reportedly received (ironic) death threats.

The story is detailed.

Now I've heard everything !!

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.

The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.

The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article's authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.

The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

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.” .................

Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say

Where will they "Draw the Line" next ?

reply to post by xuenchen

Where will they draw the line next?

The increasing of the age to 12 months, then progressively adjust for population density.

Then they will put a limit on the other end as well with a cut off at 70 years old.

Real pieces of work this lot are, scum of the earth

Well its official.

I dont trust experts anymore.

reply to post by xuenchen


Okay,I stopped at the first line. Why? Because it's a ridiculous claim.

"says newborn babies are not “actual persons”

Really now? So,a person isn't a person?

Is it April Fools Day and nobody told me?

There`s always an expert i`d love to know where they find them

www.amazon.com...


Like my great grandfather used to say .... " where ever there`s fire , there`s always arson about "

From the OPs linked article:

Giubilini, a former visiting student at Cambridge University, gave a talk in January at the Oxford Martin School – where Prof Savulescu is also a director – titled 'What is the problem with euthanasia?'

I think those two want to explore the limits to which they will still be "accepted" by ethical observational research. I do think that there is more than a hint of sarcasm, if not irony in their articles.

If someone had of done it to the experts at birth, I would of seen it justified..

I thought babies where somewhat conscience in the womb, they yawn, sleep n cry.... In order to cry you have to feel some kind of emotion. But im no expert so idk...

maybe those "experts" should move to china. a place that kills newborns that are not born to people with permission to have a kid. seems like their type of place, they should have a good time there. something that has been used against china as unethical behavior for years.

the OTHER country i am aware of that had no issues killing PEOPLE they thought had no worth be it gay, jew, gypsy, political opponents, old and infirm as well as handicapped people was Nazi Germany. and we even held trials against them for it. so now it is alright? guess we owe Germany BILLIONS in reparations for MURDERING those that were killed because of these types of killings? after all if a baby is an inconvenience and can be killed why not ANYONE who you find to be an inconvenience to you? just think MURDER would no longer be a crime, we could let a lot of "innocent" people go free.

the fact that a fetus is "not a person" was bad enough, but if they are not a person once born, then what is the difference between a baby and ANYONE ELSE?

reply to post by xuenchen

The question should not be if a developing Fetus is alive because it is...the real question is at what point does a clump of cells turn into a SENTIENT HUMAN BEING!

I would never presume to to tell or force a Woman what she can or can't do with her own body. It is not anyone's call but hers. But I also believe there is a Moral aspect that is distasteful to me when I think of both someone trying to Force a Woman to have a Child as well as it also being distasteful to me that a Sentient Fetus late term living in the womb being killed by abortion.

This would all be less of an issue if proper Birth Control Methods were properly taught at a young age as well as Drugs such as the MORNING AFTER PILL as well as PLAN B...being widely available to any girl or woman.
Split Infinity

reply to post by generik


I was only reading the other day about the 150,000 babies that were taken from their mothers here in Australia around the 70's. Its disgusting. I wouldn't be surprised if some ended up in a satanic blood ritual or something.

The whole thing looks like a joke. Don't know what they are trying to achieve with such a declaration. As rightly said the next step will be to decide for old people because they are senile and don't have clarity of thought.

This is in line with earlier Chinese methods of family planning. The authorities were legally allowed to rupture through the skull of the fetus when the head of the fetus was trying to come out of the cervix (crowning) during labor. After the head comes out the officers cannot do anything other than punishing the parents for having a second child.

On the contrary to their belief of the child not being a person, there is proof that babies start absorbing facts from when they are inside the womb - fetal programming. Studies show that what the parents do when the babies are in the womb affects the child's psychosocial development and paves the way of the child's future. That is the reason pregnant mothers are promoted to read good books and avoid exposing themselves to violent and negative media.

OMG. One question. What constitutes an “actual person” who does have a “moral right to life” if not a baby in the eyes of these people?

This is some scary stuff here.

I like that scientists have the freedom to discuss and publish ideas like this - no matter how abhorrent they might be.

Rationally - they are correct. If society contends that abortion is acceptable, then infanticide should also be allowed. I can see how they follow that rational thought path - an infant cannot survive without the intervention and care of a parent....so following that...we should be allowed to dispose of youngsters up to the age of 16!

Rationally, they are correct. But just because they have thought of it...doesnt mean they actually really believe it.

This is an exercise in logic, that's designed to make us think.

If you read to the bottom of the article before you get too outraged - he makes a good point.

While accepting that many people would disagree with their arguments, he wrote: “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 argument based on widely accepted premises.” Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he added: “This “debate” has been an example of “witch ethics” - a group of people know who the witch is and seek to burn her. It is one of the most dangerous human tendencies we have. It leads to lynching and genocide. Rather than argue and engage, there is a drive is to silence and, in the extreme, kill, based on their own moral certainty. That is not the sort of society we should live in.” He said the journal would consider publishing an article positing that, if there was no moral difference between abortion and killing newborns, then abortion too should be illegal.

I am not taking the article seriously - it is designed to make us question our paradoxical morality...and it has achieved its aim.

reply to post by selfharmonise


Yes, and the purpose it is serving is to let us know that we are being illogical when we say abortion is ok but killing babies isn't - which is absolutely true.

A fetus/embryo and a baby is the same thing, still a conscious living human at a different stage of life depending on the mother.

So it is true that if you want to be logical, you either have to accept that killing babies is also ok, or accept that abortion is not moral.

The first thing that develops is the Heart , which means that as soon as the embryo/fetus starts growing it is ALREADY living which means that to stop that beating heart would be killing.

I am not a religious person or anything and it is only common sense that if killing is immoral , then abortions (killing of baby in the mother's womb) is immoral.

reply to post by arpgme


Abortion is evil................................................EVILLLLLLLLLL!!!!!
i agree

reply to post by xuenchen


Yes , abortion and murder is the same . Why would they allow abortion ? Abortion should be made illegal

reply to post by selfharmonise


I agree with your assessment. Here is a quote from the JME:

The novel contribution of this paper is not an argument in favour of infanticide – the paper repeats the arguments made famous by Tooley and Singer – but rather their application in consideration of maternal and family interests. The paper also draws attention to the fact that infanticide is practised in the Netherlands.

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 argument 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.

JME

It seems that this article was an exercise in open and free ethical discussion and was also an attempt to bring the abortion/infanticide issue to light.

That being said, I find it funny that many people that abhor abortion ususally never have a problem supporting war.

George Carlin said it best:

If you're pre-born, you're fine, if you're pre-schooled, you're ****ed. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life, these people aren't pro-life, they're killing doctors, what kind of pro-life is that? What, they'll do everything they can do save a fetus, but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it?

How come when it's with us, it's an 'abortion', and when it's with chickens it's an 'omelet'?

By the way, I am not trying to make a political point of this. I am just posting the quote to show the insanity of some arguments.

It depends on when they draw the line, i think they should make a law stating something accurate, like so and so is when we declare that the fetus is a living organism. And anything beyond that should not be aborted unless mothers or baby's life is in danger.

problem is is too out in the open for interpretation, setting a line would put an end to these types of debates.

My personal opinion i would draw the line around 6 months.

It's what we used to do in Ancient Rome.
It sound barbaric but in practice it really was a good solution - for then.
If you had a baby you didn't want, you took it to the public square and left it.
People would say you were leaving it to the wolves, but believe me, we had some folks that were really pro-life then too, heck, we nearly had a war over circumcision because people could not stand hurting babies like that.

So anyway, you'd leave the baby. You'd have to be pretty much in dire straights to do it, but after you did, anyone that wanted the child could go get it. If someone was childless, there was no paperwork- and a lot of these kids were 'adopted' like that. Other times, the children were taken and raised to be slaves.

It was STILL a life.