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

...after muzzling him and forcing him to eat Pedigree Chum?

That's still making me laugh!

have you actually read the link.
there is a lot of talk about murdering disabled babies, it is also mentioned in the op.
so you can pretend all you like but that is what the thread is about.

It actually says this in the link:

"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."

Another jewish baby here ,

BooBoo, I think it's all very well for a band of academics to sit around discussing these ideas and another for it to be published.

If it's published it's in the public domain, this means that as well as forming and dividing opinion within the public domain it also has the power to do so politically. I'm afraid some of our elected elite can not tell the difference between the ramblings of academics and good solid debate about policy.

We know this from history, marie stopes in the 30's the left intellectuals and scientists and finally the genocide of millions of people under the nazis.

By all means discuss but once it's published it's up for discussion and even political debate.

minimathsmouse, I think you are inching us towards some common ground! So presuming everyone agrees that nobody on MN is actually advocating murdering babies, can we also agree that the authors probably didn't intend to advocate that either, that they are engaging in a theoretical exercise (however misguided)?

In my first post I said I thought it wasn't very big or clever. What I meant was that although I didn't think their debate was intrinsically morally wrong, I also think they have a responsibility to consider context and impact when airing it in public (i.e. publishing it). Given the social context we are in (i.e. our society's treatment of disabled children and their families) they might have thought that some sensitivites would be inflamed. I do get that: as a lesbian mother, I think that they would have the right to do a similar exercise with homosexuals as the subject/target, but I would feel pissed off in a kind of, "There's enough real prejudice out here, couldn't you pick on someone else for a change?".

Mostly, though, I think the Telegraph is guilty of real shoddy journalism in the way they have written this up. It's not news, and they have taken a sensationalist interpretation that they KNOW is both misleading and likely to inflame.

So I think we can probably all agree that the authors, the journal and the Telegraph have all contributed (however unwittingly) to a really unhelpful set of headlines. I still don't think it amounts to the authors advocating killing babies, though.

No debate is intrinsically morally wrong, and stifling philosophical enquiry on the grounds that those who haven't taken the time to try and understand it may get offended is ridiculous.
Someone has to push the boundaries of thinking, the endarkenment we are currently living through is bad enough, do we really want to snuff out the little academic vigour we have left?

Daily Mail Article

"Carl Whant was charged with killing Nikitta's unborn baby under a rarely-used law.

As the baby had not been born, legally he could not be accused of murder so instead he faced a child destruction charge.

The offence is rarely used in court and Whant is believed to be one of the few people charged with it in the last 10 years.

It covers those who kill unborn babies who are 'capable of being born alive'.

It usually applies if the woman has been pregnant for 28 weeks or more - Nikitta had been pregnant for 38.

The crime was created in the 1929 under the Infant Life (Preservation) Act.

The act read: 'Any person who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, by any wilful act causes a child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother.

'Shall be guilty of felony, to wit, of child destruction, and shall be liable on conviction thereof on indictment to penal servitude for life.'

The crime is punishable with life in prison - the same as murder.

David Wooler, Crown Advocate for the Crown Prosecution Service in Wales, said: 'I decided that Carl Whant should also be charged with the offence of child destruction, under the Infant Life (Preservation) Act of 1929.

'This is an offence which prohibits wilful acts causing the death of any child capable of being born alive - and given the advanced stage of Nikitta Grender's pregnancy, Kelsey-May certainly fit that description.

'Child destruction is, thankfully, a very rarely used charge; we are not aware of another case like this one in Wales.

'When the legislation was originally drafted in the 1920s, it was intended to be used to curb the activities of back-street abortionists.

'But in a more modern setting, it can be applied to cases where an offender deliberately takes the life of an unborn child through a violent or aggressive act.'"

So, this man's sentence was partly extended by the fact that he killed a woman's unborn child.

"This is an offence which prohibits wilful acts causing the death of any child capable of being born alive"

newborn has yet to develop hopes, goals and dreams and so, while clearly human, is not a person ? someone with a moral right to life

As I mentioned before as someone who has the Moral right to life because I had the luck to be born to wealthy parents, with no disabilities and the education to provide for myself!!!!!! I would like to test this idea of Goals, dreams and hopes.

I have seen many homeless people beg on the streets, they are capable of moral reasoning, they are in many cases educated, most do not have disabilities that would be termed birth defects but almost without doubt all lack HOPE, DREAMS, GOALS.

As the one of the morally superior I have a moral dilemma, should I go kick the shit out of them or even advocate euthenasia or should I extend the hand of compassion and help them develop DREAMS, GOALS and HOPE.

Same can be said of all human life including new born babies, we could take the view that as the gate keepers of all things wicked and evil and the moral advocates of good we could help them develop the prerequisites of the right to life, dreams, goals and hope.

Devora I agree this probably isn't something that should ever have been funded let alone published.

It's a no brainer not even worthy of debate. I have had an early abortion and I'm a feminist. This article plays into the hands of rabid pro-life anti women brigade or feeds the right wing propaganda machine the means to punish the people it sees as unworthy, not just unworthy but damn right not entitled to life. Either way as a women we have to take a stand and say......our bodies, our babies and we decide within reason and within a sensible moral framework.

I'd send this bunch of academics their cards and send them packing.

Homeless people don't have hopes or dreams?

So you've decided what that "sensible moral framework" is then minimathmouse? And no further discussion allowed? Or are you accepting current legislation as defining the "sensible moral framework?" Even though scientific development mean changes to things like the gestational age at which babies can survive outside the womb? Would we still not be allowed to discuss it? Subject closed? You seem to be saying "I dont like the implications of what this argument could mean, so the discussion should be banned."

I am also pro abortion and a feminist - but I support issues like these being debated because it is intelligent and responsible to examine your own beliefs. It challenges us as individuals and as a society. It's uncomfortable because abortion for example on one level contradicts the drive we have to protect our species. But these discussions actually, I think, are part of what it means to be human - thinking, rationalising, seeking to understand, changing our beliefs as necessary - rather than just letting ourselves react on a basic instinctive level and getting hysterical or refusing to publish debate that make us uncomfortable.

Think I'm starting to repeat myself now...

and replace them with what? Your startling insight?

You can't even tell the difference between intellectual debate and sensationalist reporting of intellectual debate.

The law relating to 'child destruction' is different to the law on abortion because they are two different things.

While I'm tempted to see how long it will take some of the really stupid to work out what it is, I'll be kind and help you out.
The difference between abortion and child destruction is the woman's opinion. If she chooses to terminate her pregnancy, that's fine. If someone chooses to attack her in the hope of causing her to miscarry in a situation where she wishes to continue the pregnancy, that's not fine.

Peter Singer's work (whose logical conclusion is the moral permissibility of infanticide even though he does not argue for this in the book itself) was published in 1979 but there hasn't been any corresponding wave of political or public movement in that direction whatsoever. It is a very popular UG textbook because it exercises the students' reasoning skills: through a series of logical steps it takes them to a conclusion most are not happy with, therefore encouraging them to go back and challenge the premises.

While indeed in the public domain as published articles (or at least in the domain of those with access to Uni libraries) philosophy papers have a miniscule readership. Even within the profession itself the very volume of publications means that a handful of people will read each article at best. For example, my edited collection on medical ethics has sold 400 copies in 6 years, hardly a world record!!!

"While I'm tempted to see how long it will take some of the really stupid to work out what it is, I'll be kind and help you out.
The difference between abortion and child destruction is the woman's opinion. If she chooses to terminate her pregnancy, that's fine. If someone chooses to attack her in the hope of causing her to miscarry in a situation where she wishes to continue the pregnancy, that's not fine."

I was going to make that exact point, but a visitor arrived so I had to click post.

How can someone's life hang in the balance to be determined by someone else's opinion?

In effect, a woman could be walking down a pavement on her way to an appointment to have her baby's life terminated, due to disability. If someone stopped her on the way, deliberately took action to end her child's life, they would be imprisoned for doing something that was due to happen half-an-hour later.

It's nuts....all of it.

Lougle - by that logic, it's ok to stab people because the victim could have been about to have surgery and allow a doctor to cut them open or, conversely, that surgeons shouldn't be able to cut patients because it is illegal to stab someone.

Yes, suchprospects. It makes it all ludicrous. I should make it clear that as the parent of a child with SN, (and pro-life) I am totally AGAINST the idea that a child can be killed at the whim of other people.

Lougle: Well I am totally against the idea that any buckethead with a whim could be allowed to exercise control over what any woman does with her own body.

Solidgoldbrass The whole point is it is not the woman's it is the baby's body.

Solid. What about the body of a 38 week old fetus? What about his/ her rights?

"Lougle: Well I am totally against the idea that any buckethead with a whim could be allowed to exercise control over what any woman does with her own body."

Yeah, think I get that, SGB.

I disagree with you, naturally. Rights come with responsibilities. Once you have a baby inside you, there are two lives to consider. Not just one.

Interestingly (for me) I worked in SCBU/NICU and many of the nurses who worked there said that if they went into pre-term labour at around 24 weeks they wouldn't even present at hospital, because they felt that the trauma that prem babies go through is too much. They would, they said, rather let their baby go in their arms than deliver in a hospital where intervention would be the natural response.

Whether they would change their mind once they had a wriggling foetus inside them, who knows?

"Solid. What about the body of a 38 week old fetus? What about his/ her rights?"

Get with the programme, fatagainkathsigh - ball of cells doncha know

I still can't get my head around the idea that it is legal to kill a baby who is disabled up to term. What does that say for children like mine??

agree lougle. the limit should apply to all.

AND MINE and what about my13yr old devastated by meningitis @ 8months old kill him too cos he drains this country financially.

SGB Read again, most children with gastroschisis go on to lead normal lives. Exomphalos is more likely to be related to other defects, but these can vary hugely in severity and who is to say that that living with particular defects is worse then being severely diabetic or epileptic? But again people view certain defects as being worse then others and rarely from an objective viewpoint.

Again, think: if people were always so quick to pull the "no point trying to treat it, they'll just suffer anyway", we would not have made many of the medical advances that we have. Transplants, bypass surgery, skin grafts... None of it would exist.

That is not to say deciding when to try and when not to is clear cut, but it cannot be argued to never try at all.

Finally, as for talk of resources, in a country full of tax avoidance, with plenty of loopholes that could be closed, taking about just letting people due to lack of money is rather unpleasant. Also, would you happy for drug users, heavy drinkers and smokers to be denied treatment, because it's their own fault and limited resources should go elsewhere?

Also, those who are talking about this being an ethical discussion, remember that no discussion is free of context. Ableism/Disablism is a very pervasive prejudice in our society and people need to analyse their own predjudices carefully.