Are these UK Profs for or against abortion?

[Maryann_C]

I thought I had seen this topic discussed at CAF already but can not find it now. A friend brought the issue up today saying that they are considering allowing babies to be killed up to 1 year of age in England. Here is the Telegraph article
telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html
which quotes the 2 professors that published the position in the Medical Journal. I actually think it was a very clever ploy of theirs ( kind of like Ray Comfort’s 180 video) to get people to think rationally about the absurdity of abortion. What do you say?

 

[_Abyssinia]

Prof Suvalescu is quoted as saying, 'abortion is a legitimate way for people to control the number of children they have. Morally, we should suggest to the women that they give up the children they don’t want, put them up for adoption. 'But there is a division for what, morally, people should do, and what the law requires them to do.

link-zone.net/perspectives/people/juliansavulescu.shtml

 

[JimG]

No, they are actually serious. They think that abortion could be extended to apply to post-birth babies. The same has been suggested by no less than the head of the Princeton University Department of Ethics (!), Peter Singer, who has suggested that parents should have the option of “aborting” their children up to 3 or 4 months post-birth, in case they missed any defects or just changed their mind.

 

[Dale_M]

No, they are actually serious. They think that abortion could be extended to apply to post-birth babies.

I agree. The professors, and the editor of the ethics journal which published their essay, took quite a bit of heat for what they wrote. Given that this news story broke months ago, I think they would have corrected public impressions by now if their aim was satirical or subversive.

A couple extra points, though. The professors are originally from different countries, but both teach in Australia. They aren’t UK professors, although as students studying in England they both met the editor of the journal while at Oxford.

And I don’t think there is any evidence that the UK, or any country in the world, is considering allowing infanticide for up to one year. If such a thing were in the works, it would be all over the news.

 

[Maryann_C]

@ Dale thanks for setting me straight on their nationality . I did realise they were in Australia now but I did not pick up on the fact that they were not English.

What about the last statements though. As I read the article again I realise that it was Dr T Stammers’ “director of medical ethics at St Mary’s University College”, comment that got me thinking that this was a ploy to get people to think of the seriousness of abortion and what it really is . Now I think it is infact the reporter who crafted a very clever report that seems to be stating just facts but perhaps did put their own bent to it and my English ‘radar’ that is fine tuned to such subtle reporting picked it up?

I do remember the US Prof’s comment and the lack of public out cry and shock it seemed to cause . I think we just all thought ‘Oh that is just some nutso elitist professor’ . The problem is that this think is noting new (has been going on since it was imported to Nazi Germany from California) and I think it is part of the ‘boiling frog’ syndrome that is satan’s plan.

 

[JimG]

"Referring to the term “after-birth abortion”, Dr Stammers added: “This is just verbal manipulation that is not philosophy. I might refer to abortion henceforth as antenatal infanticide.” "Actually, the professors simply take the rationale of abortion to its natural conclusion. One might refer to abortion as ‘pre-birth infanticide’ and one might refer to the ‘termination’ of early newborns as ‘post-birth’ abortion.

I don’t recall any particular outrage at Professor Singer of Princeton for his suggestion that newborns might be legitimally killed at the parents’ request.

We’ve already come quite a way down that road. Downs Syndrome babies are routinely aborted. And there have been some lawsuits essentially alleging “wrongful birth” when a doctor failed to discover defects in an unborn child for which the parent would have aborted the child. Professor Singer (and these professors) believes that a mother’s right to choose abortion need not necessarily end at birth.

As for the disabled and elderly, they are also at risk. Some time back a paraplegic woman had a rather congenial discussion with Dr. Singer because she was one of the people whom he would have preferred not to have been born under his ethics (Harriet McBryde Johnson, I believe.)

We are eager to get the organs of the sick as soon as we can, perhaps wishing to hasten them along a little toward their demise.

And the elderly, well, Medicare and Social Security would be better off if they would die sooner. Nobody’s recommending just killing them off, at least not yet. But if we can kill the child, we can kill anyone.

 

[Dale_M]

"Referring to the term “after-birth abortion”, Dr Stammers added: “This is just verbal manipulation that is not philosophy. I might refer to abortion henceforth as antenatal infanticide.” "Actually, the professors simply take the rationale of abortion to its natural conclusion. One might refer to abortion as ‘pre-birth infanticide’ and one might refer to the ‘termination’ of early newborns as ‘post-birth’ abortion.

I agree that the “pre-birth infanticide” contention has long been a part of the pro-life movement, and can see why Maryann suggested that the philosophers were being subversive with their argument.

I don’t recall any particular outrage at Professor Singer of Princeton for his suggestion that newborns might be legitimally killed at the parents’ request.

I had never heard of him, or his position on this topic, until I came here to CAF. As near as I can tell, he made his argument in a book published in 1993, which was at the dawn of the web-based internet we are now so familiar with. I think if he had published his work ten years later, it would have caused a much greater outcry, simply because his views would be known to more people.

Singer has mentioned that the ethics of justifiable infanticide were first discussed in 1972. He was referring to Michael Tooley’s article “Abortion and Infanticide” published in Philosophy and Public Affairs, which he said was the preeminent ethics journal.

Tooley’s article, of course, is off the radar of everyone except the most informed persons. I think the proliferation of the internet has made people better informed.

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

Sadly, this doesn’t even surprise me. The suggestion is disgusting but that’s where the world is going.