Just so the peanut gallery didn't go too off topic, I thought I would start a discussion here.
Bob Enyart in his response to Rando said he was protesting a recent paper that suggested Post-Birth abortion should be acceptable under certain circumstances.
The paper is here http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full
And the conclusion is here.
Personally I don't see it as post-birth abortion, it's just plain old murder to me. The only way it would be permissible is if the baby had 0% survival chance and was in a lot of pain, then I would count that as euthanasia even though the baby doesn't have the capacity to make that choice.
Thoughts?
Bob Enyart in his response to Rando said he was protesting a recent paper that suggested Post-Birth abortion should be acceptable under certain circumstances.
The paper is here http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full
And the conclusion is here.
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.
Personally I don't see it as post-birth abortion, it's just plain old murder to me. The only way it would be permissible is if the baby had 0% survival chance and was in a lot of pain, then I would count that as euthanasia even though the baby doesn't have the capacity to make that choice.
Thoughts?