Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (Full Version)

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xxblushesxx -> Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:29:22 AM)

According to this paper published by The Journal of Medical Ethics *irony alert* it is and should be condoned. After all, a baby is not an "actual person" and doesn't have "an actual right to life", according to the authors, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

“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.”

As such they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”.

Many people have been saying for years it would come to this. I, for one, didn't believe them. This is so beyond the pale, it is sickening. We're sliding down a slippery slope and better realize it before the government ends up having the final say on who is "viable" and who is not.



geilematz -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:31:10 AM)

I recommend to read Jonathan Swift



DarkSteven -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:37:42 AM)

Is that article a satire, or a piece designed to attract condemnation of abortion by equating it to murder of a newborn?

There has been a huge battle rightly focused on the point at which a person actually "begins". The article totally ignores that concept.



kalikshama -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:41:33 AM)

A modest proposal: "after-birth abortion"

Whoa—"After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?" —a hot-button article by a pair of philosophers recently published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, looks a lot like Jonathan Swift's brilliant 18th-century satire "A Modest Proposal."

Swift suggested solving the Irish famine problem by eating Irish babies. In this instance, the authors, Alberto Giubilini of Monash University (Australia) and Francesca Minerva, currently at the University of Melbourne, appear to be constructing a rationale for killing newborns, but make a whopping—and, to hear them tell it, inadvertent—case against abortion.Their argument is built on faulty assumptions, beginning with the equation of newborns and fetuses, but that's not stopping it from roiling the waters.

From their abstract: "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."

Meanwhile, equally clueless anti-abortion fanatics are lobbing death threats at the authors they ought to be applauding. Some things haven't changed since 1729.



servantforuse -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:41:35 AM)

Ever see an ultra sound ?



SternSkipper -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:42:28 AM)

quote:

According to this paper published by The Journal of Medical Ethics *irony alert* it is and should be condoned. After all, a baby is not an "actual person" and doesn't have "an actual right to life", according to the authors, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.


It's really not part of the discussion here in the US. You should have probably started with "To The European Participants". You won't see this discussion anytime soon in the 'Lancet'.
Just sayin.



kalikshama -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:44:50 AM)

quote:

Is that article a satire, or a piece designed to attract condemnation of abortion by equating it to murder of a newborn?


Judging from the conclusion, I'm thinking the bolded.

CONCLUSIONS
If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for
the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an
abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of
the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has
any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the
same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the
killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of
a newborn.



tazzygirl -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:50:23 AM)

quote:

Many people have been saying for years it would come to this. I, for one, didn't believe them. This is so beyond the pale, it is sickening. We're sliding down a slippery slope and better realize it before the government ends up having the final say on who is "viable" and who is not.


Yes they have. I recall these kinds of comments when we started with advanced directives. And its as much bullshit then as it is now.

Their conclusions... are quite humorous. .. and filled with flaws.

The problem is that at the moment of birth, all infants are then protected the same as any adult, legally. In order for the government to "sanction" killing defective infants it would have to reverse its stance on euthanasia. Bioethics is a field that is full of unusual questions... and some people like to ask the most outrageous simply for their 15 minutes of fame.

In rebuttal, this was interesting....

Any society that will not protect its children and kill threats to those children is pointless, and exercise in futility, and eventually doomed to failure and dissolution. Hence, there is no quandary about whether or not Giubilini and Minerva need, from an ethical standpoint, to be hunted down and exterminate. It’s self-evident.

http://blog.jonolan.net/ethics-morality/an-ethical-quandary/




tazzygirl -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:51:36 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

Is that article a satire, or a piece designed to attract condemnation of abortion by equating it to murder of a newborn?

There has been a huge battle rightly focused on the point at which a person actually "begins". The article totally ignores that concept.


There is no satire, DS. A quick search on both researchers will reveal that.



Moonhead -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:52:32 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: geilematz

I recommend to read Jonathan Swift


I suspect Philip K Dick's "The Pre Persons" might be more germane here than "A Modest Proposal".



Hotch -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:56:49 AM)

Personally I think the line should be drawn at when the fetus can sustain its own life. I find the idea of denying a woman the right to ownership of her own body almost as distasteful as abortion. It's an ugly argument and I can see the value in the right to life position, but not to the point of infringing on thee right of ownership of ones own body.



kalikshama -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 8:57:14 AM)

quote:

I suspect Philip K Dick's "The Pre Persons" might be more germane here than "A Modest Proposal".

"The Pre-persons" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. It was first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, October 1974 shortly after his famous mental breakdown in March 1974.

It was a pro-life response to Roe v. Wade. Dick imagines a future where the United States Congress has decided that abortion is legal until the soul enters the body, which is specified as the moment a person has the ability to do simple algebra. The main protester — a former Stanford mathematics major — demands to be taken to the abortion center, since he claims to have forgotten all his algebra.



SternSkipper -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 9:00:53 AM)

quote:

Ever see an ultra sound ?


Do you like to watch gladiator movies Bobby?



xxblushesxx -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 9:01:00 AM)

After a lot of research, I have found their published answer to the outcry this paper engendered.

They say that it was just an "if x=y then z follows type thing" (or somesuch, sorry, I didn't copy the quote word for word) They say it was an exercise in intellectual debate, and basically only meant to be seen by other "intellectuals" who could understand the thought processes behind the debate. I can see how it could be. We definitely learn to argue things we don't believe in debate classes and in legal classes. But I also see the danger in this type of thinking.




Hotch -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 9:10:09 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: xxblushesxx

After a lot of research, I have found their published answer to the outcry this paper engendered.

They say that it was just an "if x=y then z follows type thing" (or somesuch, sorry, I didn't copy the quote word for word) They say it was an exercise in intellectual debate, and basically only meant to be seen by other "intellectuals" who could understand the thought processes behind the debate. I can see how it could be. We definitely learn to argue things we don't believe in debate classes and in legal classes. But I also see the danger in this type of thinking.




Yes, being a good, logical debater does not necessarily make you right... Just as my wife.



xxblushesxx -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 9:11:13 AM)

I'm sorry, what?



tazzygirl -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 9:12:44 AM)

He meant.. just ask his wife... lol



farglebargle -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 9:13:12 AM)

So, we're back to "Does a soul make tissue special, and if so, at what point is a soul installed in the developing tissue?"



tazzygirl -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 9:15:13 AM)

Does science believe there is a "soul"? This is another time I wish there was a window installed during pregnancy that we could peek in and see what was really happening.



Moonhead -> RE: Killing Babies the Same as Abortion? (3/4/2012 9:15:36 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: kalikshama

quote:

I suspect Philip K Dick's "The Pre Persons" might be more germane here than "A Modest Proposal".

"The Pre-persons" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. It was first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, October 1974 shortly after his famous mental breakdown in March 1974.

It was a pro-life response to Roe v. Wade. Dick imagines a future where the United States Congress has decided that abortion is legal until the soul enters the body, which is specified as the moment a person has the ability to do simple algebra. The main protester — a former Stanford mathematics major — demands to be taken to the abortion center, since he claims to have forgotten all his algebra.


That's the kid.
Somebody is obviously (and ludicrously) trying to equate born babies who are already capable of living outside of their mother's body with blobs who can't. Dick used a rather clever metaphor for that in the '70s, while Swift's main concern was the Irish Potato Famine rather than birth control.



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