Abortion debate goes one step further

[ballen0351]

Killing babies no different from abortion, experts sayParents 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.” 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’. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...s-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html

 

[billc]

In their defense, I believe they said something along the lines of this is what ethicists do, they discuss these things as part of their job. Well, that would be all well and good but there are people who look at that and say, "Hmmm...they do kind of have a point..." and then the train starts rolling down the line where these things usually lead...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/eugenics-skeleton-rattles-loudest-closet-left

It is eugenics, the belief that society's fate rested on its ability to breed more of the strong and fewer of the weak. So-called positive eugenics meant encouraging those of greater intellectual ability and "moral worth" to have more children, while negative eugenics sought to urge, or even force, those deemed inferior to reproduce less often or not at all. The aim was to increase the overall quality of the national herd, multiplying the thoroughbreds and weeding out the runts.
Such talk repels us now, but in the prewar era it was the common sense of the age. Most alarming, many of its leading advocates were found among the luminaries of the Fabian and socialist left, men and women revered to this day. Thus George Bernard Shaw could insist that "the only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man", even suggesting, in a phrase that chills the blood, that defectives be dealt with by means of a "lethal chamber".
Such thinking was not alien to the great Liberal titan and mastermind of the welfare state, William Beveridge, who argued that those with "general defects" should be denied not only the vote, but "civil freedom and fatherhood". Indeed, a desire to limit the numbers of the inferior was written into modern notions of birth control from the start. That great pioneer of contraception, Marie Stopes – honoured with a postage stamp in 2008 – was a hardline eugenicist, determined that the "hordes of defectives" be reduced in number, thereby placing less of a burden on "the fit". Stopes later disinherited her son because he had married a short-sighted woman, thereby risking a less-than-perfect grandchild.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I read the article somewhat differently. Although I do not believe it is intended to be taken as a pro-life argument, it could be.

The article points out that being a 'human being' is not enough to stop the legal abortion of a fetus. This is a basic argument that rages back and forth over abortion; no matter what else a fetus is it is most definitely a 'human being'. A human fetus has all of the attributes of a human being, down to the DNA. It will not become a puppy or a cat or a horse. It may live or die, naturally or assisted, but it is and will remain human tissue, all other arguments aside. Therefore, the argument goes, abortion is not about killing a human being, but about aborting a creature which is not (yet) a 'person' in the eyes of the law.

And what is a person? When is a person a person, and therefore entitled to the rights we accord persons (such as not being put to death on a whim legally)?

Some would argue that personhood attaches when a baby is delivered from its mother and first draws breath. Others would argue that personhood attaches when the baby becomes 'viable', meaning that it *could* draw breath if given the opportunity by being delivered outside the mother's body. Still others believe that personhood attaches when pain or other emotions can be felt. Or when a certain date in the pregnancy is passed, a certain age attained. And although indiscriminate killing of infants is a general taboo through the world, in ancient times and modern, there are cultures which place less emphasis on an infant's life if it is unwanted, or the product of rape, or born out of wedlock, or whatever reason; even if it is the wrong sex, has not attained a particular age (such as a year old) or been given a name. Our current Western standards are not universal.

The article basically looks at what 'personhood' is, and says:

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’. 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. This means that many non-
human animals and mentally retarded human individuals are
persons, but that all the individuals who are not in the condition
of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons.
Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing
someone a right to life. Indeed, many humans are not considered
subjects of a right to life: spare embryos where research on
embryo stem cells is permitted, fetuses where abortion is
permitted, criminals where capital punishment is legal.

Our point here is that, although it is hard to exactly determine
when a subject starts or ceases to be a ‘person’, a necessary
condition for a subject to have a right to X is that she is harmed
by a decision to deprive her of X. There are many ways in which
an individual can be harmed, and not all of them require that she
values or is even aware of what she is deprived of. A person
might be ‘harmed’ when someone steals from her the winning
lottery ticket even if she will never find out that her ticket was
the winning one. Or a person might be ‘harmed’ if something
were done to her at the stage of fetus which affects for the worse
her quality of life as a person (eg, her mother took drugs during
pregnancy), even if she is not aware of it. However, in such cases
we are talking about a person who is at least in the condition to
value the different situation she would have found herself in if
she had not been harmed. And such a condition depends on the
level of her mental development,6 which in turn determines
whether or not she is a ‘person’.
Those who are only capable of experiencing pain and pleasure
(like perhaps fetuses and certainly newborns) have a right not to
be inflicted pain. If, in addition to experiencing pain and plea-
sure, an individual is capable of making any aims (like actual
human and non-human persons), she is harmed if she is
prevented from accomplishing her aims by being killed. Now,
hardly can a newborn be said to have aims, as the future we
imagine for it is merely a projection of our minds on its potential
lives. It might start having expectations and develop a minimum
level of self-awareness at a very early stage, but not in the first
days or few weeks after birth. On the other hand, not only aims
but also well-developed plans are concepts that certainly apply
to those people (parents, siblings, society) who could be nega-
tively or positively affected by the birth of that child. Therefore,
the rights and interests of the actual people involved should
represent the prevailing consideration in a decision about
abortion and after-birth abortion.

Boiled down, the argument basically states that an infant is not a person because it does not have aims and goals. Depriving it of life deprives it of nothing, as it knows nothing; it certainly does not know it wishes to keep living. In the same paragraph, the article also argues that since both a fetus and a newborn can experience certain emotions such as pain, they must be protected from having to experience that. However, both fetus and infant can be killed without inflicting pain.

All the authors appear to be doing is pointing out that if 'personhood' is the basis on which we decide when a fetus (or an infant) can be aborted, then a different understanding of what personhood is leads to a different conclusion about when 'abortion' can or should be legally permitted. It moves the goalposts.

And in my mind, it makes a hash of the pro-choice arguments regarding when a pregnancy may be terminated. If personhood is the bar, then the bar may not be where you think it is. If personhood is not the bar, then what is the bar? It cannot be status as a human being, because every fertilized cell is a human cell and nothing else.

What is in-between human and person?

New frontiers.

Fascinating. Thanks for posting!

 

[Big Don]

I think they sorely misunderstand what the word ETHICS means...

 

[Big Don]

On that note, Mattocks, couldn't we call someone 20 years old not a person? Not legally able to buy alcohol or hand guns...
or Drop it to 17, not able to vote, ergo not a person?
Or 15, not able to drive?
Lets start with retroactive abortions on the zero population growth people, they should line up, so new people can come in...

 

[Steve]

Pretty soon, someone will want to have a 42nd trimester abortion, and then where will we be???

 

[Bill Mattocks]

On that note, Mattocks, couldn't we call someone 20 years old not a person? Not legally able to buy alcohol or hand guns...
or Drop it to 17, not able to vote, ergo not a person?
Or 15, not able to drive?
Lets start with retroactive abortions on the zero population growth people, they should line up, so new people can come in...

Said in jest, I realize, but also consider that the CDC uses FBI gun death statistics and interprets anyone under the age of 25 as a 'child' to inflate 'gun deaths involving children'. So, sure, why not?

The point of the article I think was that different definitions of 'person' change boundaries and might change perceptions. You might notice the absolute dearth of pro-choice objections here on this thread; they read and realize they have no logical argument. Isn't that interesting?

 

[cdunn]

Well, there's already a perfectly viable pair of words for what the authors of the paper are proposing; it doesn't need to be called 'after-birth abortion', it's already called euthanasia and infanticide. Hell, the first was functionally offered, through life-support withdraw, to my parents when I was born... in a Catholic hospital. The me that is now is glad that they chose to rough it out, but wouldn't be able to attach any wrongness to the action had they let me die.

But, the paper also offers that the question of 'when does a human become a person' is a real ethical question, and open to answer. I would argue that there is a certain line of biological independance from the mother that must also guide the ethics of the situation, when an otherwise viable infant is unwanted. An infant can be handed off to another, and that is an important line. While the paper's authors note that the cost of adoption vs infanticide to the parents is not identical, and it is questionable as to which is worse, the potential personhood of the infant is, imo, of high value due to the imminent realization of its mental capacity, and the high relative cost of the pregnancy and birth is already spent, thus irrelevant. This calculus changes rapidly as you head backwards towards fertilization; the relative future costs of pregnancy and birth mount, and the potential of the fetus disintegrates, imo, particularly before the structures that can develop awareness form.

So,
infanticide of the healthy, I would still say no.
Abortion? Still yes, under most circumstances. (As I have previously stated, I believe the point where awareness starts to coalesce, rather than finishes, is of high importance, and do not believe that abortion should be practiced past that point, excepting immediate and unusual danger, or non-viability.)
Euthanasia? Well. Sometimes it is justifiable.

But it was a fun argument to read. Infanticide has a long and healthy tradition in humanity - infanticide as homocide is a conceit that started with the Abrahamic religions; digging into the actual ethics, on the other hand, is kind of interesting. I think it's time for me to go so some reading and thinking.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Well, there's already a perfectly viable pair of words for what the authors of the paper are proposing; it doesn't need to be called 'after-birth abortion', it's already called euthanasia and infanticide. Hell, the first was functionally offered, through life-support withdraw, to my parents when I was born... in a Catholic hospital. The me that is now is glad that they chose to rough it out, but wouldn't be able to attach any wrongness to the action had they let me die.

But, the paper also offers that the question of 'when does a human become a person' is a real ethical question, and open to answer. I would argue that there is a certain line of biological independance from the mother that must also guide the ethics of the situation, when an otherwise viable infant is unwanted. An infant can be handed off to another, and that is an important line. While the paper's authors note that the cost of adoption vs infanticide to the parents is not identical, and it is questionable as to which is worse, the potential personhood of the infant is, imo, of high value due to the imminent realization of its mental capacity, and the high relative cost of the pregnancy and birth is already spent, thus irrelevant. This calculus changes rapidly as you head backwards towards fertilization; the relative future costs of pregnancy and birth mount, and the potential of the fetus disintegrates, imo, particularly before the structures that can develop awareness form.

So,
infanticide of the healthy, I would still say no.
Abortion? Still yes, under most circumstances. (As I have previously stated, I believe the point where awareness starts to coalesce, rather than finishes, is of high importance, and do not believe that abortion should be practiced past that point, excepting immediate and unusual danger, or non-viability.)
Euthanasia? Well. Sometimes it is justifiable.

But it was a fun argument to read. Infanticide has a long and healthy tradition in humanity - infanticide as homocide is a conceit that started with the Abrahamic religions; digging into the actual ethics, on the other hand, is kind of interesting. I think it's time for me to go so some reading and thinking.

I think that's an entirely reasonable point of view. Regardless of one's personal choices or beliefs, if read with an open mind to grasping the nuances being presented, I think it's a fun mental exercise. If nothing else, it will make you have a stronger grasp of why you believe what you believe, and it's possible that it might cause some to reevaluate their positions. I like things like that, even when I disagree with the conclusions.