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Kill The Infants!

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10K views 63 replies 18 participants last post by  branditopolis 
#1 ·
In this Journal of Medical Ethics, some people believe it is alright to kill infants in after-birth abortions.

http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/02/22/medethics-2011-100411.full

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.

The rest of the article is just as shocking.
 
#53 ·
lmakcerka: Why are you unwilling to actually engage with my arguments? I asked you several questions and you've skirted nearly all of them; I'm not sure why, but I can't conduct a discussion without actual engagement; I'm not going to keep sending arguments off into the void. I'll answer your questions when you answer mine,
 
#54 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smokering View Post

OK, trying to keep on topic here....

How then do you respond to the argument I made in my original post? To recap

"A woman should have every right to her body" - I assume you mean "every right to do what she wants with her body"? But abortion and infanticide obviously involve someone else's body as well - the baby's - so that should really be phrased as "A woman should have every right to do what she wants with her body, even if what she wants to do with it is kill someone else" (or at least, sign the consent form allowing someone else to do the killing).

If you believe that wholesale, then you eventually descend into complete anarchy - if we can all do whatever we want with our bodies, even if harms others, then rape and murder and theft and genocide are all OK. I'm going to assume you don't believe that. :p So presumably you mean "A woman should have every right to do what she wants with her body, even if what she wants to do with it is kill someone else, under specific circumstances". Right?

A woman should be able to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy. It used to be illegal - one reason it was legalized (in the US, I have no idea what the laws of your country are though since I haven't looked it up) is that women were dying of back alley abortions. It became a public health issue as the infections they were getting from illegal procedures was killing them. Allowing women to get abortions does not take us into complete anarchy allowing people to run around committing mass murders and gang rapes. It's a specific procedure that is made by a pregnant woman because she does not want to continue the pregnancy. The reasons for that are infinite, and depend on a persons personal circumstances. I don't know all the reasons, I don't need to - I believe in a woman's autonomy over her own body, and I believe that a woman's life (a woman who may be married with kids, a single mother who cannot afford another child, a woman who is living in poverty, a woman who is in an abusive relationship and fears telling her husband/boyfriend/partner, etc etc etc) should take precedence over that of a fetus. Allowing abortions - which can only be performed on consenting women by doctors when the woman is pregnant - does not equate to allowing murder en mass, nor does it equate to allowing people to do whatever they want whenever they want to the detriment of society.

So what are those circumstances, and how do the circumstances of abortion (which you think should be legal) and infanticide (which you find "disturbing", although I don't believe you commented on whether you felt it should be legal or not) differ?

The difference between a fetus and a baby is that a baby has been born and is living independent of the mother. A fetus is not living independent, and is inside the mother. That is the difference. I do not believe in infanticide - I think that infanticide and abortion are completely different.

A PP mentioned that a baby in the womb can only be looked after by one specific mother, whereas a baby outside the womb could be looked after by others; but that distinction would seem to assign moral worth to babies solely on the basis of convenience. If it were impossible for a mother to hand over her baby for fostering/adoption; if she were the only person available to care for it; would not infanticide be permissible, under that paradigm?

Using unrealistic scenarios to make your point won't help you either. If a baby (who has been born) is crying and crying and crying and there isn't anyone for 1,000 miles to help you - put the baby down and walk away for 20 minutes or a half hour. Seriously. The baby will live. I'm not a fan of CIO, but a mother who has no help and needs a half hour to chill, won't kill her baby and also won't harm them for life. When you are parenting a baby who has been born, you can get some time away in almost all situations to relax and calm down. Killing the baby isn't necessary. When you are a cocaine addict and you are pregnant, and not able to clean up enough to have a healthy baby, who am I to tell you that you have to carry that fetus to term? It's becoming harder and harder to get treatment for addictions when you are pregnant (at least here int he US) because it is being criminalized to take illegal drugs when pregnant. This deters women from seeking medical care and help detoxing - which adds more public health issues and makes it harder for women to have a health pregnancy.

If her "moral compass" were OK with it, and she wanted to use her body as she pleased (ie not feeding and caring for a helpless baby - or I suppose, by extension, an invalid or otherwise helpless person)... would you believe we didn't have the right to force her to do it, and that therefore she could order the death of the baby, or even perform it herself if she wanted to use her body that way?

Well, in all honesty, we cannot force people to care for babies or invalids. That's why CPS exists in our world, and why people call them when they notice a baby failing to thrive. Or when they see a child being beaten, or otherwise think a family is at risk. We don't have the right to force a mother to feed her children, but we do have the ability to remove those children from her care if need be (well, I don't, but CPS and the courts do have that ability)

In other words: you seem to be pro-choice but anti-infanticide, but what's your reasoning that finds a moral distinction between the two?
Also, I have a big problem with the slippery slope of making abortions illegal. Will women be questioned when they have a miscarriage? What if a fetus dies in the 2nd or 3rd trimester? Will they be investigated for murder? I've been fortunate and never suffered a pregnancy loss - but I can only imagine how devastating it would be. To add being investigated for murder on top of that is just too much.

Will D&C's be disallowed for missed miscarriages? They are frequently used for that.

I also wonder how much of your reasoning is based on religious beliefs. I don't know about your home country, but my country was founded on the basis of religious freedom and separation of church and state. It's written into our Declaration of Independence, and our government is not allowed to act based on religious teachings, leanings or beliefs. Crazy lunatic man Rick Santorum (who would never get elected) has outright stated that he disagrees with separation of church and state - which is a big problem because our nation was founded with that as a major principle.
 
#55 ·
I do see this argument as simply a variation/continuation of the abortion debate. The primary debate about abortion is simply "when does a fetus/child become a person" or "when does a fetus/child reach a developmental stage to have value".

I'm pro-life. I honestly do not believe that life begins at conception. I do, however, believe that life does begin at some point before birth. I do not know when that point is in the pregnancy. I suspect it is fairly early. I would say that life begins when neurons start firing but I don't know when that happens. Since I cannot know I choose to consider a fetus as alive from conception onward to avoid the chance of terminating the life of a separate and conscious individual.

Right now my belief system is not the most prevalent belief in our country and our laws reflect this by making abortion legal. The belief that life does begin before birth is also a very common belief. The authors of the article quoted have yet another belief as to when life starts. Happily this is not a popular opinion about when life happens.

No matter what milestones you choose to use to quantify when life begins there is going to be differences of opinion. Take my opinion that life begins with neural development. While I would argue that the ability to think makes a person and gives that person value and makes that person someone who should have the legal right to life, I could see another making the argument that life doesn't begin until the brain is mature at over the age of 21 and therefore they don't have the right to protection of life.

While most of us wouldn't agree that a person should be allowed to be killed legally up until age 21 due to their incomplete brain development we do use that brain development to deny them rights even past the age of legal adulthood. Isn't the fact that brains are still developing in young adults one of the primary reasons that the drinking age in our country is 21 despite legal adulthood beginning at 18 in most states? Even this decision is one that many individual have different opinions on.

So really the decisions about when life begins are somewhat arbitrary and there are always going to lots of opinions about how to quantify life and it's value and what rights that person should or should not have.
 
#56 ·
It's not that I'm not answering your questions. You're to quick to be negative toward the person on the other end. I do not debate but would rather discuss. When you make inflammatory statements such as

If you believe that wholesale, then you eventually descend into complete anarchy - if we can all do whatever we want with our bodies, even if harms others, then rape and murder and theft and genocide are all OK. I'm going to assume you don't believe that. :p So presumably you mean "A woman should have every right to do what she wants with her body, even if what she wants to do with it is kill someone else, under specific circumstances". Right?

You lose me.

In no way have I said, "You want women to suffer, you want all babies to live no matter the consequence or death of the mother". Look I would love to discuss this with you but you are seriously black and white and you want an argument. You won't get one from me. For one I really like you, also I don't argue things such as this but rather try to understand them. To me there are so many variables. I understand your thinking, I once thought that way. I have changed my mind through experience and life. My own losses and my own fears. With my current medical situation getting pregnant might mean I would have to choose a life. I would choose mine. I have two living daughters and three dead ones. I'm going to say the living ones need me more.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smokering View Post

lmakcerka: Why are you unwilling to actually engage with my arguments? I asked you several questions and you've skirted nearly all of them; I'm not sure why, but I can't conduct a discussion without actual engagement; I'm not going to keep sending arguments off into the void. I'll answer your questions when you answer mine,
 
#57 ·
Super-Single-Mama: I've replied to some of your post already via PM. I'll repeat it here for the sake of completeness, but after that I'd rather our discussion was kept to one place or the other: seems silly to repeat arguments.

Quote:
Allowing women to get abortions does not take us into complete anarchy allowing people to run around committing mass murders and gang rapes.
I didn't say it did; I said that the statement "a woman should be able to do what she wants with her own body" need to be better phrased, because as it stands, it would allow for mass murder and gang rape. If what you believe is simply "a woman should have the right to kill her fetus", then say that; don't make noble-sounding catch-phrases that don't hold up to scrutiny. NOBODY believes "a woman should be able to do what she wants with her own body" as a standalone principle. It sounds good, but it makes no sense.

Quote:
The difference between a fetus and a baby is that a baby has been born and is living independent of the mother. A fetus is not living independent, and is inside the mother. That is the difference. I do not believe in infanticide - I think that infanticide and abortion are completely different.
A baby is only capable of living independently of its mother if a mother-substitute is available. If not, she is forced to use her body (surrendering her bodily autonomy) in order to prevent it dying, just as with pregnancy (and in many cases, with far more mental and physical toll - some women sail through pregnancy and birth, but find breastfeeding, night wakings etc absolutely hellish).

Quote:
sing unrealistic scenarios to make your point won't help you either. If a baby (who has been born) is crying and crying and crying and there isn't anyone for 1,000 miles to help you - put the baby down and walk away for 20 minutes or a half hour. Seriously. The baby will live. I'm not a fan of CIO, but a mother who has no help and needs a half hour to chill, won't kill her baby and also won't harm them for life. When you are parenting a baby who has been born, you can get some time away in almost all situations to relax and calm down. Killing the baby isn't necessary. When you are a cocaine addict and you are pregnant, and not able to clean up enough to have a healthy baby, who am I to tell you that you have to carry that fetus to term? It's becoming harder and harder to get treatment for addictions when you are pregnant (at least here int he US) because it is being criminalized to take illegal drugs when pregnant. This deters women from seeking medical care and help detoxing - which adds more public health issues and makes it harder for women to have a health pregnancy.
20 minutes or half an hour... after which she has to again surrender her bodily autonomy to return to care for the infant, or it WILL DIE. It's true that in most situations, parents of newborns can theoretically get support or give the baby up for adoption (although how many of those parents realistically, actually have and are aware of access for those services is another question): but doesn't that reduce the baby's right to life to convenience? A baby can live only insofar as its mother doesn't have to surrender her bodily autonomy to care for it? What if she doesn't want to use her own, autonomous body to pick up the phone and dial an adoption agency? How absolute is her bodily autonomy?

Quote:
Well, in all honesty, we cannot force people to care for babies or invalids. That's why CPS exists in our world, and why people call them when they notice a baby failing to thrive. Or when they see a child being beaten, or otherwise think a family is at risk. We don't have the right to force a mother to feed her children, but we do have the ability to remove those children from her care if need be (well, I don't, but CPS and the courts do have that ability)
So you don't think parents who neglect or starve their children should be punished, on the grounds that feeding/clothing them or treating their illnesses would have interfered with their [the parents'] bodily autonomy? Really? What about forcing dads to pay child support? That interferes with how they use their bodies. What I'm looking for here is a qualitative distinction between "using your body" in a reproductive sense, and "using your body" in any other sense. No-one has yet given me one.

Quote:
Also, I have a big problem with the slippery slope of making abortions illegal. Will women be questioned when they have a miscarriage? What if a fetus dies in the 2nd or 3rd trimester? Will they be investigated for murder? I've been fortunate and never suffered a pregnancy loss - but I can only imagine how devastating it would be. To add being investigated for murder on top of that is just too much.
Not necessarily. Murder's illegal, and most deaths don't come with a criminal investigation, unless there is reason to believe there was foul play.

Quote:
Will D&C's be disallowed for missed miscarriages? They are frequently used for that.
I don't see why they shouldn't be, as that's not a pro-life issue. I can't answer for what laws your crazy American system will come up with, but it is irrelevant to the theory and philosophy of the pro-life movement.

Quote:
I also wonder how much of your reasoning is based on religious beliefs. I don't know about your home country, but my country was founded on the basis of religious freedom and separation of church and state. It's written into our Declaration of Independence, and our government is not allowed to act based on religious teachings, leanings or beliefs. Crazy lunatic man Rick Santorum (who would never get elected) has outright stated that he disagrees with separation of church and state - which is a big problem because our nation was founded with that as a major principle.
[Copying and pasting]

1. NZ has freedom of religion and separation of church and state. That means religious people have the freedom to vote against laws they think are immoral. Separation of church and state does NOT mean, in NZ, the US or anywhere else, that religious people must put their beliefs aside and pretend they are secular humanists/atheists/whatever when they vote.

2. My beliefs that rape, murder and theft are wrong are also founded on my religious beliefs - should I not vote to oppose those things? Be consistent. If you don't like religious people voting according to their beliefs only when you disagree with those beliefs, it's dishonest to pretend this is about separation of church and state.

3. Secular beliefs are no more inherently worthy of being enshrined in law than religious ones. You believe a fetus has no rights - whether you believe that because you believe God told you, your spirit grandmother told you or your ex-boyfriend or philosophy professor told you is irrelevant. Your beliefs are not more provable or epistemically superior simply because they are not religious. Why should unborn babies have to pay the price for your personal beliefs?

Quote:
When you make inflammatory statements [snip] You lose me.
How is it inflammatory? I'm asking you to define your beliefs precisely, because no discussion can be fruitful without precise definitions. I never claimed you were OK with rape/murder/genocide; in fact, I specifically stated that I believed you weren't. Obviously you're under no obligation to discuss this with me, but if you do I need you to respond to what I say, or what's the point?
 
#58 ·
alright one more time,

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smokering View Post

OK, trying to keep on topic here....

How then do you respond to the argument I made in my original post? To recap

"A woman should have every right to her body" - I assume you mean "every right to do what she wants with her body"? But abortion and infanticide obviously involve someone else's body as well - the baby's - so that should really be phrased as "A woman should have every right to do what she wants with her body, even if what she wants to do with it is kill someone else" (or at least, sign the consent form allowing someone else to do the killing).

Yes, if she's KILLING her unborn child it's her right. I'm using words you probably would appreciate as they're the ones you're already using and I refuse to sugar coat. Yes she may kill her own in utero child. One crappy aspect about being a woman is that the fault/blame/responsibility will always fall on her shoulders.

If you believe that wholesale, then you eventually descend into complete anarchy - if we can all do whatever we want with our bodies, even if harms others, then rape and murder and theft and genocide are all OK. I'm going to assume you don't believe that. :p So presumably you mean "A woman should have every right to do what she wants with her body, even if what she wants to do with it is kill someone else, under specific circumstances". Right?

Under no specific circumstances. When there are "circumstances" in place there is always room to invade the mind and soul of the woman with guilt and unnecessary medical procedures as they are doing now here in the states.

So what are those circumstances, and how do the circumstances of abortion (which you think should be legal) and infanticide (which you find "disturbing", although I don't believe you commented on whether you felt it should be legal or not) differ? A PP mentioned that a baby in the womb can only be looked after by one specific mother, whereas a baby outside the womb could be looked after by others; but that distinction would seem to assign moral worth to babies solely on the basis of convenience. If it were impossible for a mother to hand over her baby for fostering/adoption; if she were the only person available to care for it; would not infanticide be permissible, under that paradigm? If her "moral compass" were OK with it, and she wanted to use her body as she pleased (ie not feeding and caring for a helpless baby - or I suppose, by extension, an invalid or otherwise helpless person)... would you believe we didn't have the right to force her to do it, and that therefore she could order the death of the baby, or even perform it herself if she wanted to use her body that way?

You know what would be ideal. Education. We currently have some states refusing to allow any education but abstinence in the school system until the student is 18. There are no avenues for these kids to learn about the proper way to care for themselves other than their parents and more times than not the parents will not teach them either.

Do I honestly think babies should die due to a possible special needs outcome, no. Do I really think babies need to die at all? No absolutely not. However in the times we're dealing with it's NOT black and white at all. I don't like the idea of abortion and I wish there was never a need for it. However I do believe the right to make that decision for yourself is important. Nobody should be able to make it for you.

In other words: you seem to be pro-choice but anti-infanticide, but what's your reasoning that finds a moral distinction between the two?

I suppose it's because I see the child who is born to be just that a child and the one in utero a possibility.
 
#59 ·
Quote:
Yes, if she's KILLING her unborn child it's her right. I'm using words you probably would appreciate as they're the ones you're already using and I refuse to sugar coat. Yes she may kill her own in utero child.
OK, now we're getting somewhere. Next question: why?

Quote:
Under no specific circumstances. When there are "circumstances" in place there is always room to invade the mind and soul of the woman with guilt and unnecessary medical procedures as they are doing now here in the states.
I don't think you understood me. The "under specific circumstances" phrasing was meant to rule out women killing just anyone, for the sake of precision; as in, a woman may kill her unborn child, but not, say, her teenage daughter.

Quote:
You know what would be ideal. Education. We currently have some states refusing to allow any education but abstinence in the school system until the student is 18. There are no avenues for these kids to learn about the proper way to care for themselves other than their parents and more times than not the parents will not teach them either.

Do I honestly think babies should die due to a possible special needs outcome, no. Do I really think babies need to die at all? No absolutely not. However in the times we're dealing with it's NOT black and white at all. I don't like the idea of abortion and I wish there was never a need for it. However I do believe the right to make that decision for yourself is important. Nobody should be able to make it for you.
That's a complete non sequiter. I doesn't answer my question at all!

Quote:
I suppose it's because I see the child who is born to be just that a child and the one in utero a possibility.
There scientific evidence is against you. A "possibility" doesn't have a heartbeat, brainwaves, DNA, pain receptors, organs etc. Whether or not a fetus is a person is a matter for philosophical debate, but a fetus is most definitely, absolutely a being, not a concept.
 
#61 ·
The government cannot compel a human being to use their body to keep another human alive against their will, unless of course they categorize the former as a different kind of human which certain factions tend to do. Women as a class can get pregnant, so their bodily autonomy and personal sovereignty is not nearly as sacred as those who cannot get pregnant. It's very simple.

Religion is the red herring. It may inform your personal beliefs, but has no business informing legislation (in the US, anyway). Most conservative US religions think life starts at conception. Many non-mainstream Eastern religions do not. Many other religions don't care either way. Who's right? Who cares?
 
#62 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smokering View Post

OK, now we're getting somewhere. Next question: why?
To keep it from becoming a human being and having legal rights, because things become more complicated at that point. I'm not a slippery slope person, so I see a difference in infanticide vs. the killing of a zygote through an IUD or BCP just as a I see a difference in abortions in the early weeks vs. in the later weeks. But if every zygote is a human, and I admit it's easier just to take the absolute position, then having to use your hand to fill out a tax form is the same as having to use your body to carry a pregnancy through to birth. But as Suzywan points out, the government cannot compel you, which just means they can't make you complete the tax form and they can't make you carry the pregnancy--they can prosecute you if you don't.

But I think that if you have to act as your conscience dictates, and push for making it illegal for a woman to terminate a potential pregnancy, if that is what you believe is morally right. And the people who disagree with this will push for their own agenda.
 
#63 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smokering View Post

Please explain how your link is at all relevant to my argument? I've seen that page before, and it doesn't address either of my points; all it does is point out the hypocrisy of some "pro-life" (although obviously not) individuals, which isn't really the issue at hand.

As for the rest of my post, I disagree that it's inflammatory (certainly no more so than your original statements, to which I was responding) and it certainly wasn't intended as a personal attack; but if you feel it warrants reporting, report it. Otherwise, feel free to point out any errors of reasoning in my argument, or respond rationally to it.
I am, in fact, "inflamed".
 
#64 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by suzywan View Post

The government cannot compel a human being to use their body to keep another human alive against their will, unless of course they categorize the former as a different kind of human which certain factions tend to do. Women as a class can get pregnant, so their bodily autonomy and personal sovereignty is not nearly as sacred as those who cannot get pregnant. It's very simple.

Religion is the red herring. It may inform your personal beliefs, but has no business informing legislation (in the US, anyway). Most conservative US religions think life starts at conception. Many non-mainstream Eastern religions do not. Many other religions don't care either way. Who's right? Who cares?
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