Pockets of the Internet are just beginning to bubble over paper published in the March issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics. Editors of the journal decided to prepublish the paper, titled, “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”, online last week, and it’s already making waves. From the abstract:
Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.
So far, only a handful of blogs have picked it up (this one includes a lengthier summary of the authors’ arguments, if you’re interested), but, predictably, the comments sections on those posts are blowing up. Earlier today, the editors of the journal published a response in defense of their decision to publish the paper:
This article has elicited personally abusive correspondence to the authors, threatening their lives and personal safety. The Journal has received a string abusive emails for its decision to publish this article. This abuse is typically anonymous.
… As Editor of the Journal, I would like to defend its publication. The arguments presented, in fact, are largely not new and have been presented repeatedly in the academic literature and public fora by the most eminent philosophers and bioethicists in the world, including Peter Singer, Michael Tooley and John Harris in defence of infanticide, which the authors call after-birth abortion.
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.
… What is disturbing is not the arguments in this paper nor its publication in an ethics journal. It is the hostile, abusive, threatening responses that it has elicited. More than ever, proper academic discussion and freedom are under threat from fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society.
Read the journal’s full response over here.
Also, from the actual article: ‘…we do not claim that after-birth abortions are good alternatives to abortion. Abortions at an early stage are the best option, for both psychological and physical reasons. However, if a disease has not been detected during the pregnancy, if something went wrong during the delivery, or if economical, social or psychological circumstances change such that taking care of the offspring becomes an unbearable burden on someone, then people should be given the chance of not being forced to do something they cannot afford.”
It seems that this doesn’t have to do anything with “healthy” babies, but rather babies who “appeared healthy” but were found to have some kind of condition which would have warranted abortion if known during pregnancy.
The article also CLEARLY states “We are not suggesting that these are definitive reasons against adoption as a valid alternative to after-birth abortion.”
So, the article only “makes waves” among people who didn’t or can’t read it, or simply don’t understand it. Of course, pundits will spin…
Infanticide is unconscionable! I’m politically pro-choice with regard to first-trimester abortions, especially if the woman is pregnant as a result of rape or if there is real physical danger to the woman’s life or health, but killing a human baby after birth is nothing short of first-degree murder. How much of our humanity have we surrendered, that we can even consider tolerating such a heinous crime?
I am in agreement with Boudicca. The underlying problem is that some people consider money more valuable than human life. “I’m really poor, so I can’t afford the baby.” “My baby has a disease that is too expensive to treat, so let’s terminate the baby.” “The baby’s father (family breadwinner) died right after delivery, so we need to kill the baby.” “I’m a drug addict with the mental capacity of a ten-year old, and society doesn’t want the financial burden of my child, so I need to get rid of it.”
It seems to me that many problems come from a lack of faith. I believe that having children is a great thing to do and that if we keep them, regardless of the circumstances, miracles will happen to help us survive and even thrive with our children. I’ve seen it in my life.
[...] yet that threshold is not enough for some. Last year, the Journal of Medical Ethics published a paper whose author carried the abortion arguments to their full conclusion, namely, that a mother’s [...]