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Merged "Post-Birth abortion article published in Journal of Medical Ethics causing a stir

Galteeth

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"Post-Birth abortion article published in Journal of Medical Ethics causing a stir

http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/20...id=3722e1a3-a440-4c6d-8a75-f8af41eebe19#ref-3

When I first read this, I assumed it was an inspired piece of satire, since the parallels to "A Modest Proposal" seem so obvious. Apparently not.

"However, having a child can itself be an unbearable burden for the psychological health of the woman or for her already existing children,1 regardless of the condition of the fetus. This could happen in the case of a woman who loses her partner after she finds out that she is pregnant and therefore feels she will not be able to take care of the possible child by herself....

In spite of the oxymoron in the expression, we propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide’, to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk. "

I can imagine this will be an intense discussion, and one that cannot avoid the wedge issue of abortion, but I'd be interesting in hearing what people think of this argument.

EDIT: Fixed the link
 
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Galteeth said:
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/201...41eebe19#ref-3

When I first read this, I assumed it was an inspired piece of satire, since the parallels to "A Modest Proposal" seem so obvious. Apparently not.

"However, having a child can itself be an unbearable burden for the psychological health of the woman or for her already existing children,1 regardless of the condition of the fetus. This could happen in the case of a woman who loses her partner after she finds out that she is pregnant and therefore feels she will not be able to take care of the possible child by herself....

In spite of the oxymoron in the expression, we propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide’, to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk. "

I can imagine this will be an intense discussion, and one that cannot avoid the wedge issue of abortion, but I'd be interesting in hearing what people think of this argument.
Click to expand...

At the risk of simplifying it, I think that if a mother thinks of post-birth abortion before she thinks of putting the child up for adoption, then there's something seriously wrong.

I mean, in both cases the child won't be with the biological mother, but in one case both can stay alive, without harm to both.

ETA: and I seriously hope that it's a joke.

AETA (another edit to add): The page comes up empty for me.
 
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Caveat, haven't read the article yet.

The only circumstances I in which I agree with late term abortion are serious risk to the mother's health if the pregnancy is continued, and also severe disability/health problems of the foetus. If I apply the same circumstances post-birth, then the first does not apply, and with the second I would probably agree with euthanasia for a newborn.

ETA- I'm getting a "not found" message when i click the link.
 
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The link goes to a BMJ "content not found" page so it wouldn't surprise me if it's not real. ETA: Correction, it goes to a Journal of Medical Ethics page, not a BMJ page.
 
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On whatever serious note can be managed: Humans, and many other species, have practiced infanticide for all of history.
 
I've skimmed the article now, and am a little confused. They talk about allowing post-birth killing in the same circumstances as late term abortions are allowed, including where there is no disability of the child foetus. At least in the UK, late term abortions are only allowed because of said disability, or because of a risk to the health of the mother. AFAIK, they are not allowed because the circumstances of the mother have changed which is part of what the article is arguing for. I'll have to read it properly later.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
I've skimmed the article now, and am a little confused. They talk about allowing post-birth killing in the same circumstances as late term abortions are allowed, including where there is no disability of the child foetus. At least in the UK, late term abortions are only allowed because of said disability, or because of a risk to the health of the mother. AFAIK, they are not allowed because the circumstances of the mother have changed which is part of what the article is arguing for. I'll have to read it properly later.
Click to expand...

In the US the same, life of the mother and severe severe severe disability.

I am not sure why this person is making this argument, my guess is notoriety.

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.

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.
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So we have the conflation of newborn and fetus for one.

It sure looks like this person is stirring the pot.
 
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Professor Yaffle said:
I've skimmed the article now, and am a little confused. They talk about allowing post-birth killing in the same circumstances as late term abortions are allowed, including where there is no disability of the child foetus. At least in the UK, late term abortions are only allowed because of said disability, or because of a risk to the health of the mother. AFAIK, they are not allowed because the circumstances of the mother have changed which is part of what the article is arguing for. I'll have to read it properly later.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The idea of abortion should not be that we don't whant the child to live, but that we are forced to weigh the welfare/health/life of one individual agaisnt that of another. In such a case we favor the mother.

However, once the child is born, the welfare of either is no longer mutually exclusive; it is possible to provide for both. Thus, the justification for killing (I'm OK with calling it that) one is not longer present.

Hans
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Yes, but there are lots of things humans have practiced throughout history that nowadays we don't allow legally.
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Obviously. My point really regards the entire "moral" debate. I'm against any attempt to justify abortion morally. I would rather frame the issue historically and pragmatically. There are times when women just do not want to be mothers. If forced, they'll do a very, very bad job at it. Historically, this led to infanticide. We have the technology now to safely end pregnancies before birth and should be able to do so. By performing abortions on willing women, we are not crossing into any new territory.

I read the article and consider it absolute nonsense. It defines a person as someone capable of appreciating life. There is no justification for that definition at all except that it allows the authors to support their end conclusion. They also skip over the question of whether anyone has a moral right to decide which humans fit their definition of personhood. Perhaps Andrew is not a person, but why does that mean Betsy gets to decide whether he is or not?

It's just a mess.
 
Dancing David said:
In the US the same, life of the mother and severe severe severe disability.
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At least one of the authors is affiliated with Monash University, in Melbourne, where late-term abortions are relatively easy to get.

I am not sure why this person is making this argument, my guess is notoriety.
Click to expand...
My guess is that it's in the job description for bioethicists.

So we have the conflation of newborn and fetus for one.
Click to expand...
There's no conflation in the passage you quoted, just the observation that neither newborns nor fetuses are persons according to the morally relevant sense of 'person' they're advancing.
 
Loss Leader said:
It defines a person as someone capable of appreciating life. There is no justification for that definition at all except that it allows the authors to support their end conclusion.
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It's a definition with a long history, and one that has a kind of moral immediacy that makes it, if nothing else, useful to moral philosophers. In any case, it's slightly uncharitable to suggest that the authors are looking for excuses to kill babies.

They also skip over the question of whether anyone has a moral right to decide which humans fit their definition of personhood. Perhaps Andrew is not a person, but why does that mean Betsy gets to decide whether he is or not?
Click to expand...
Presumably because they don't expect that question to come up among their audience.
 
It is hard to believe that a paper like this was published by a journal.
The editor and the authors have already been subjected to abuse according to his defense . I don´t blame people for doing this.

As someone said it better:
It is both disturbing and regrettable that the “choice” being proposed in this article has chilling similarities to the Nazi process of
‘selection.’

I hope their academic careers are over, at least they will lack credibility among peers.
 
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Galteeth said:
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/20...id=3722e1a3-a440-4c6d-8a75-f8af41eebe19#ref-3
Click to expand...
Note the reference for that citation:

#3 Kuhse H, Singer P. Should the Baby live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985:143.
Click to expand...

I own most of the books Singer has written, including Should the Baby Live. I'm at work and don't have book on hand to cite directly, but I can paraphrase the thesis as follows:

Sometimes children are born with severe, terminal abnormalities which cause them to suffer excruciatingly before they eventually expire, or never attain consciousness. A few examples would be a child born without a forebrain which will never attain consciousness, or a child born without intestines which will never extra nourishment from food and will eventually starve to death. (Neither of these are hypothetical cases. Several case studies like this are described in detail in the book.)

Since modern medicine is at a point where we can keep most any person alive regardless of injury, we really have to rethink the whole notion that human life is sacred and must always be protected. Realistic issues, such as a person's quality of life, affect the ethics of protecting life for the sake of life itself, since a hardline sanctity of life ethic has the unfortunate side-effect of prolonging suffering for these kinds of infants. Given the examples above, what possible advantage is there to an infant born without intestine to starve to death?

On the other hand, there are many good reasons for this very narrow case to justify infant euthanasia:

- starving to death is torture, an outcome most people want to avoid.
- even if the infant were sedated, parents suffer an incredible emotional ordeal watching their child dehydrate starve to death.

A good case of non-voluntary euthanasia exists for certain severely handicapped infants who will never attain consciousness or will expire after a brief existence of extreme suffering. Like arguments for non-voluntary euthanasia involving terminally ill adults, arguments for euthanizing severely handicapped infants do not generalize very easily to healthy infants.
 
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