Shocking article considers whether babies have 'moral right to life'. WARNING: distressing content

[chandellina]

following on last week's abortion thread, anyone care to jump in on this one?

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.

Telegraph story

I think the level of acknowledgement reflects peoples actual thoughts on the personhood of those involved, it that generally people don't see unborn in the same way as born. It's intuitive.

That article is appallingly written but I do think it's an ethical debate which needs to be had because only by confronting unpleasant concepts within a logical framework can we (both individually and as a society) understand why we hold the views we do. For example mentioning disability automatically bring those with disabilities closer to the debate but most give a gut reaction based on their personal experience which isn't the point of ethical debate. As a female of child-bearing age, albeit without a disabled child, I confront the possibility that I may have a disabled child and what would I do, which is informed by my belief system, the resources available etc.

The kind of discussion in the article usually exists in a vacuum and pure logic rules before being applied to society, and different societies will apply it in different ways, not just because they are perceived as more advanced or have more resources.

Publishing this kind of article, although it should have been better written, exposes people to the idea of ethical dilemmas and applications of logic. Logically I can appreciate how that conclusion was reached but I still find it distateful as do most people, so applying it to society as a whole we can conclude that killing babies is wrong and therefore legislate against that.

So birds I don't 100% agree with you here "Ethics doesn't count in legalities, logic or societial norms. Ethics serves a seperate purpose." I think ethical debate can inform other spheres.

I don't think the main purpose is to inform our thinking on abortion, but rather on what it means to be people, if all it takes is the right genes, does it matter what we do as humans? Is our humanity innate or is our agency an essential part of it?

yes I read the article
top with a foetus is wholly different to infanticide

"PeppyNephrine Fri 02-Mar-12 08:55:38

You can't compare a fully grown adult person with a foetus. If you want to compare that properly, imagine your husband is attached to you via wires and tubes dependent on you for every aspect of his survival, taking nutrients from you, and would die if you unplugged him. And no-one asked you if you wanted to be hooked up to him.
Now, you want to divorce him. Should you be forced to stay hooked up to him until such time as he can get by on his own? And have to go through dangerous procedures that could kill you, and a very painful operation to let him go, and then serious emotional and legal upheaval, knowing that he could come back and claim a relationship with you at any time? Or should you be able to unhook yourself and say, no thanks, I don't want to be your life support machine?"

Ok, so let's look at it this way.

Would you argue that a person who has a baby who has started to crawl but can't yet walk, should be responsible for feeding and providing water for the baby and warmth? Or should they be able to decide that they don't want to be their baby's life support and just stop feeding, watering and dressing them? Because that baby WILL DIE if they don't get food, hydration and warmth. Maybe not quite as fast as a newborn, but nonetheless.

So, have the courts got it wrong when they have sent people to prison for neglect?

I mean, after all, if a person shouldn't have to be in a position to support the life of someone more vulnerable than them, that should apply across the board, shouldn't it?

Or, should they, as the law sees it right now, be responsible for alerting other people to the fact that they don't want to give, or can't provide, that support, handing over their care to someone who can and will?

What makes it ok for someone with a baby inside them make a decision to kill it, but someone with a baby outside of them can't? What makes it right that a woman could terminate at 36 weeks but couldn't kill their baby who had just been born at 36 weeks? Is the umbilical cord that significant?

If the baby is on the outside and you don't want to deal with it any more you can hand it over right now.

If the baby is on the inside you can't.

It'd be interesting to see how the abortion issue changes if/when we develop artificial wombs into which foetuses can be transferred, safely and easily, at any stage of development.

Lougle, the defining factor in law is the birth of the head. Once the head's out, the baby is a legal being. I'm not sure what the situation is if the baby is born breech.

I didn't argue any of that. And you are being over-emotive.

You've answered your own question. Of course there is an inherent difference between a foetus inside my body and a child outside of it! Isn't that obvious? One has a name and a legal status and existence of its own, independent of anyone else. The other is unborn, it doesn't have any of those things.

BornUnborn. Can there be any greater difference, or any more obvious distinction? Unborn doesn't count as alive. When you celebrate your birthday, you count the years you have been alive, the day you were born and became a person. You don't count any of the nine months before. You are born and you become an alive person. Before that you aren't.

You may not agree. But as a society, all over the world, this is a standard, intuitive, obvious distinction. It is at birth that we are recognised as alive, as a person.

The difficulty of where personhood begins and why there is a distinction between a born child and an unborn foetus is one of the main points of the academic exercise, so I think Lougle's frustration with replies that simply say "because they are born" is reasonable.

I come down to the fact that we can't determine when an individual born child reaches that point of personhood (where they become aware of their own existence etc.) and since once they are born there are no longer counter rights of bodily autonomy for the mother it is a good place to draw a hard line.

That is the point of the exercise, and its a good one. But that fact remains that we already have a line, a widely accepte moral, legal and ethical line that creates a distinction between born and unborn. It isn't over-simplistic to say "because they are born", because that is what we have all settled on already, as a society.

But then we have to explore why we settle there as a society. At that point there are evidently, visibly, 2 beings but what difference do those few minutes make in terms of the status of the being that appears other than it becoming visible to everyone?

Societal norms can be wrong but we only find out that they are because we ask questions which challenge the default position.

Interestingly enough socially and legally we have more than one lines. Embryo research in the UK is permitted up to 14 days, approximately when the primitive streak is formed and there is no more possibility of division into more than one embryos .

Ethically this is as arbitrary as birth. It is not clear why something that can divide into two or more has no moral rights, whereas when it can no longer do so it acquires them.

The authors reply to the controvercy:
blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/03/02/an-open-letter-from-giubilini-and-minerva/

Its difficult for experts to debate when it is so grossly misreported, and they receive death threats.

who funds this stuff? are they actually paid to talk about this?

Yes, as part of their academic work. Whats wrong with that?

It is oversimplistic to say "because they are born" when what we are doing is questioning why we draw a line at birth.

Why are born babies different to unborn ones?
Because they are born.

Not in any way furthering the discussion.

Well no, but when asked the question directly, and if that is your actual belief, why would you answer differently?

so someone pays them to debate killing babies?? really

You're just not getting it, are you? What exactly is your problem with philosophical enquiry?

I think if we stop debating ethical issues we lose sight of what is ethical. As we step closer and closer to the financial crisis fucking up the NHS it will be worthwhile to consider who has the right to life a prem baby with no chance of a life outside of a hospital or an elderly patient.

The financial crisis is 1) Stupid Tory ideas like PFI and the idea of tendering services. 2)The Tories wanting to privatise vast amounts of the NHS and not fund it properly. 3)Wanting to introduce even more layers of admin and pushing through a bill that no one wants.

The UK govt still pays far less for health services then many other countries do.

The resources argument turns my stomach, especially when it's put forward by people who think that NICE (which the Tories also want to axe) is a biscuit.

And that's without going into the huge socio economic component of who gets ill. Think preterm babies (as an example) happen equally across all social classes? Think again.

It's those already with the least who suffer the worst and now we talk about "not enough resources"?!

Fratel- ethical conclusions go on to inform other areas, but in essence,ethical debate doesn't in the purest sense doesn't, consider the law etc, as i said.

That is why ethical debate is so important, it does't take ito account finances. Some schools of ethical belief doesconsider the greater goodfor the greastest number of people, that is different to working within budgets,though.

It debates the rights and wrongs in human terms and what should take importance, without considering the exsistance of policy.

When something is decided on as an ethical right, then the resources have to be made available, or the research goes ahead, or doesn't.

who funds this stuff? are they actually paid to talk about this?

Many don't seem to understand that all matters, across social care are debated ethically and need to be, otherwise we would still practice eugenics etc.

The first realisationis that we have created this world that we live in and there is no real reason as to why we have to take the actions that we do. We can change the world that we live in and vise versa every action that we take changes the world.

Morals, as most understand the definition of morality, doesn't come into ethics.

There are quite easy to read books that give the basics of understanding ethics.