Oh My word- "After Birth Abortion"

[pnewton]

“We claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk,”

I agree 100% with that statement.

Peace

Tim

That was my first thought. There is no difference. Perhaps Catholics need to join this movement to equate the two. It is shocking, but therein is its power. Abortion is shocking to those who actually think about what you are doing.

 

[KCT]

Its just awful to realise that some people actually think in such a warped way. Feeling in a surprisingly charitable mood today, I am praying that they will see the error of their ways and repent of their anti-life viewpoints.

Warped, yes, but it’s the next logical step. If you allow one, the other will eventually follow.

Prayer accomplishes much, so let’s get praying!

 

[MacBP]

It is worth mentioning that many pro-choice advocates seem to be opposed to infanticide as well. In fact, I’ve read one article written from the perspective or a pro-choice advocate which claimed the promotion of infanticide was a much bigger threat to the pro-choice movement than the pro-life.

With that said, what a disgusting proposal. I guess its no more disgusting than abortion itself. Infanticide may be outside the realm of possibility now, but I shudder to think of what will and will not be acceptable in a generation or two.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

That was my first thought. There is no difference. Perhaps Catholics need to join this movement to equate the two. It is shocking, but therein is its power. Abortion is shocking to those who actually think about what you are doing.

I’ve been saying it for years, but as a reductio ad absurdium. That bioethicists in a well-known medical journal are endorsing this is sickening.

 

[jmcrae]

This is actually one more logical step in the birth control continuum.

If you don’t want a child, use birth control.

If the birth control doesn’t work, have an abortion.

If the abortion doesn’t work, kill the born infant.

If the growing child makes himself inconvenient up to age (you name it), kill the child.

If the teenager makes himself inconvenient, kill the teenager.

If you see someone who is using up air that the rest of us could be breathing, go ahead and kill him.

What’s that, you say? Why is everyone barricading themselves in their houses, and not speaking to anyone? Well, it all started at the Lambeth Council in 1930 …

 

[Bill_Martin]

Makes sense if abortion is legal. What’s the difference between a child inside the womb vs one outside of it? There isn’t any except location.

The logic used to permit abortion could apply to anyone of any age, which is why it is so clear that abortion is murder and should be banned as such.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

When we lost our baby, we were able to spend a few hours with him and the hospital gave us some beautiful pictures of him. As much as they mean to us, they’re not something we tend to share with too many others. However, a pro-abort acquaintance managed to stumble on them and told me he thought they were obscene. He wouldn’t explain why, but he was the type who’d said on numerous occasions that an unborn baby is just a lump of flesh. Looking at our son, he was clearly a baby and not just a lump of flesh. I think what really upset him, and the reason he found the pictures to be obscene, is that he couldn’t argue that we’d lost a lump of flesh. I like the idea of pushing the notion that there’s no moral difference between a 1-month-old and an unborn baby at 7, 12, 23, 32, etc. weeks. It could hopefully sway some opinions. Other than our president, I don’t know of too many others who feel that killing a post-birth baby is ever acceptable.

 

[knotanes]

Dear Lord, What are we becoming?

I don’t buy the “it’s just academics thinking academically” dismissal of this. While we’re at it, I suppose it would be a good idea if academics started thinking seriously about the point at which cannibalism becomes a socially acceptable answer to famine.

These important things must be understood. Only the highest of intellects can grasp and play with these lofty concerns.

Read the comments. One commentator was already throwing around the “uppity bigot” label for “a certain denomination” … I wonder who that would be?

It’s like living in an opposite world where evil is good and good is evil.

 

[knotanes]

What’s that, you say? Why is everyone barricading themselves in their houses, and not speaking to anyone? Well, it all started at the Lambeth Council in 1930 …

No joke there.

 

[beehumble]

This kind of pure evil stuff actually being given voice in the media is just one more sign that we are in the time of the end, and Catholics need to wake up to this and pray, pray, pray. There is no other solution; we need to turn to God.
Our Lady has allegedly said, “Pray to understand the signs of the times.”

“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of American society or wide circles of the Christian community realise this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel.” Karol Cardinal Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), November 9, 1976

God bless you.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. Here is the authors’ response to the outrage in an open letter:

“The article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were already familiar with this topic and our arguments,”

“We expected that other bioethicists would challenge either the premise or the logical pattern we followed, because this is what happens in academic debates. And we believed we were going to read interesting responses to the argument, as we already read a few on this topic in religious websites.

“However, we never meant to suggest that after-birth abortion should become legal. This was not made clear enough in the paper. Laws are not just about rational ethical arguments, because there are many practical, emotional, social aspects that are relevant in policy making (such as respecting the plurality of ethical views, people’s emotional reactions etc). But we are not policy makers, we are philosophers, and we deal with concepts, not with legal policy.”

I minored in philosophy. We kicked around ideas and concepts like that in class all the time. No one actually advocated making them legal public policy, but they were interesting debates and mental exercises. I really think that’s what happened here and people just jumped on it, took it out of context, and blew it out of proportion.

 

[Gwendolen]

This is actually one more logical step in the birth control continuum.

If you don’t want a child, use birth control.

If the birth control doesn’t work, have an abortion.

If the abortion doesn’t work, kill the born infant.

If the growing child makes himself inconvenient up to age (you name it), kill the child.

If the teenager makes himself inconvenient, kill the teenager.

If you see someone who is using up air that the rest of us could be breathing, go ahead and kill him.

What’s that, you say? Why is everyone barricading themselves in their houses, and not speaking to anyone? Well, it all started at the Lambeth Council in 1930 …

No, I don’t see this as a step on the “birth control continuum”. Just because one uses birth control does NOT follow that one does not value one’s children and would have an abortion, any more than a family using NFP would have an abortion if a conception resulted. We had a NFP “failure” and we certainly did not consider abortion. We would have had the same reaction if our contraception (we were Protestant until recently) had failed. We draw a clear and firm line between preventing a pregnancy, and killing a child. I understand the Catholic church does not agree, and that’s OK, I’m not trying to talk you out of your view on contraception, but I refuse to believe that using it is a slippery slope that leads one to abortion.

My husband has a vasectomy, the failure rate of this particular surgical method, after the “all clear” is as close to zero as anything. Why? Because of damage done during a crash c-section (an attempt to save a baby’s life) I sustained damage making getting pregnant again a risk to my life, and the life of an unborn child. If this method failed, of course, I would not abort, but I’d prefer not to be in that situation. It is because I am pro-life, that I took drastic measures to not have another baby die (crash section twins did not live) and I value my own life as a mother as well. I wouldn’t mind dying and being with my babies, but my children on Earth need a mother. My husband needs a wife. Our entire family need a stable marriage. You don’t agree with contraception, again, I get it, but don’t tell me it leads me to valuing my children less, and being more selfish, because nothing is farther from the truth. I would die for any of my children.

Infanticide is much more common in countries were there is not access to contraception, no that doesn’t mean we should make them all use contraception, but I don’t believe that contraception causes infanticide.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7971545

In this link, you can see that the lowest abortion rates IN THE WORLD come from the Netherlands, and family planning assistance is credited. Contraception does not cause abortion and infanticide in the Netherlands. Again, not trying to change your mind that abortion is immoral from a Catholic standpoint, just trying to point out there is no evidence it causes abortion and infanticide.

 

[triumphguy]

This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. Here is the authors’ response to the outrage in an open letter:

“The article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were already familiar with this topic and our arguments,”

“We expected that other bioethicists would challenge either the premise or the logical pattern we followed, because this is what happens in academic debates. And we believed we were going to read interesting responses to the argument, as we already read a few on this topic in religious websites.

“However, we never meant to suggest that after-birth abortion should become legal. This was not made clear enough in the paper. Laws are not just about rational ethical arguments, because there are many practical, emotional, social aspects that are relevant in policy making (such as respecting the plurality of ethical views, people’s emotional reactions etc). But we are not policy makers, we are philosophers, and we deal with concepts, not with legal policy.”

I minored in philosophy. We kicked around ideas and concepts like that in class all the time. No one actually advocated making them legal public policy, but they were interesting debates and mental exercises. I really think that’s what happened here and people just jumped on it, took it out of context, and blew it out of proportion.

I took philosophy too, (and Law and Theology), and we played those games too. But you would think that kind of discussion would already have been dealt with in phil101:shrug:

 

[Marc_Anthony]

This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. Here is the authors’ response to the outrage in an open letter:

“The article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were already familiar with this topic and our arguments,”

“We expected that other bioethicists would challenge either the premise or the logical pattern we followed, because this is what happens in academic debates. And we believed we were going to read interesting responses to the argument, as we already read a few on this topic in religious websites.

“However, we never meant to suggest that after-birth abortion should become legal. This was not made clear enough in the paper. Laws are not just about rational ethical arguments, because there are many practical, emotional, social aspects that are relevant in policy making (such as respecting the plurality of ethical views, people’s emotional reactions etc). But we are not policy makers, we are philosophers, and we deal with concepts, not with legal policy.”

I minored in philosophy. We kicked around ideas and concepts like that in class all the time. No one actually advocated making them legal public policy, but they were interesting debates and mental exercises. I really think that’s what happened here and people just jumped on it, took it out of context, and blew it out of proportion.

No, they did not. Not at all. Not slightly.

dailycaller.com/2012/03/06/after-birth-abortion-advocates-non-apology-apology/

When we decided to write this article about after-birth abortion we had no idea that our paper would raise such a heated debate. “Why not? You should have known!” people keep on repeating everywhere on the web. The answer is very simple: the article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were already familiar with this topic and our arguments [as] … this debate has been going on for 40 years.

But that is precisely why it was important that the public sit up and take notice. Bioethics is no mere debating society in which participants debate the propriety of infanticide today and oppose it tomorrow. Rather, the field is — and has been since its inception — about changing the values and public policies of society. As USC bioethics professor Alexander M. Capron once noted, “Bioethical analysis has been linked to action.” Bioethics historian Albert R. Jonsen has called bioethics a “social movement.” None other than Daniel Callahan, one of the movement’s founding fathers, wrote that “the emergence ideologically of a form of bioethics that dovetailed nicely with the reigning political liberalism of the educated classes in America” accounted for much of the movement’s influence and clout.

Bioethicists haven’t discoursed about infanticide for 40 years because they enjoy exploring novel concepts, but rather, because it isn’t easy to convince people — not even bioethicists — that killing babies is acceptable. Giubilini and Minerva pretend they are not part of that process of persuasion:

[W]e never meant to suggest that after-birth abortion should become legal. This was not made clear enough in the paper. Laws are not just about rational ethical arguments, because there are many practical, emotional, social aspects that are relevant in policy making (such as respecting the plurality of ethical views, people’s emotional reactions. etc.). But we are not policy makers, we are philosophers, and we deal with concepts, not with legal policy.

But gaining the philosophical high ground is precisely how radical bioethical ideas have historically been implemented. Here is the pattern: In the 1960s, the propriety of abortion was actively promoted in professional journals, leading directly to the great denouement of Roe v. Wade. Similarly, in the 1970s, bioethicists argued that it should be acceptable to withdraw feeding tubes from people with severe brain damage, an idea that was once beyond the pale. After a general bioethical consensus toward that end was achieved, the “concept” soon became public policy. Now, people who are unconscious and minimally conscious are dehydrated to death in all 50 states as a matter of medical routine. Terri Schiavo was only unusual in this regard because her blood family made such a stink…

Read more in the article.

This is as bad as we’re making it out to be. It absolutely is.

 

[Orogeny]

I minored in philosophy. We kicked around ideas and concepts like that in class all the time. No one actually advocated making them legal public policy, but they were interesting debates and mental exercises. I really think that’s what happened here and people just jumped on it, took it out of context, and blew it out of proportion.

Cool. I have never taken a philosophy class in my life, so I would like to hear your arguments for or against the position the authors took.

My position is, as I posted earlier in the thread, that I agree 100% with their position that " killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be." I argue that they are correct.

What is your position as someone who minored in philosophy and what are your arguments supporting your position?

Peace

Tim

 

[sedonaman]

This is actually one more logical step in the birth control continuum.

If you don’t want a child, use birth control.

If the birth control doesn’t work, have an abortion.

If the abortion doesn’t work, kill the born infant.

If the growing child makes himself inconvenient up to age (you name it), kill the child.

If the teenager makes himself inconvenient, kill the teenager.

If you see someone who is using up air that the rest of us could be breathing, go ahead and kill him.

What’s that, you say? Why is everyone barricading themselves in their houses, and not speaking to anyone? Well, it all started at the Lambeth Council in 1930 …

I think it goes back a little further: “But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson’s. Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and why not Legislation’s? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to death; the holder of a horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad schilling was put to Death; the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention – it might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the reverse – but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked after.” – Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

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The modern liberals’ fascination and obsession with death and communism are the prime movers their dementia.

 

[manualman]

This is actually GOOD for us in the prolife side. ANYTIME people actuall focus on the question of what abortion IS, the pro-life side wins. This is why the pro-abortion side so desperately avoids being CALLED pro-abortion. It’s why they always dodge the real issue and distract people with the difficult circumstances of the mother. If you only focus on the hardship of the mother and pretend the baby doesn’t exist, you can make converts. But if you really demand that people focus on what abortion IS, then most of them still have enough sense to eventually realize that it’s fundamentally immoral.

Discussions like this article are discussions we will win. Hardship stories about women in trouble that refuse to directly look at the reality of the proposed “solution” are the ones we lose.

Bring it on, I say. They’re over-reaching. Satan usually does when he has his way long enough. I could be wrong. People once managed to convince themselves that blacks and Jews weren’t fully human too, in spite of living, breathing speaking examples. But once babies are out in the light and can gaze at you with those innocent eyes… Nope, I don’t think evil has a chance on that one. We can win this and we can use it to force people to confront it as the logical and rational outcome of the abortion mentality.

 

[manualman]

On a lighter note, this is one of those things so ridiculous that you HAVE to wonder if it’s satire. My favorite example is the “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement” VHEMT.com. I’m pretty sure they’re serious too, but you never quire lose that nagging feeling that somebody is pulling your leg…

 

[thewanderer]

This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. Here is the authors’ response to the outrage in an open letter:

“The article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were already familiar with this topic and our arguments,”

“We expected that other bioethicists would challenge either the premise or the logical pattern we followed, because this is what happens in academic debates. And we believed we were going to read interesting responses to the argument, as we already read a few on this topic in religious websites.

“However, we never meant to suggest that after-birth abortion should become legal. This was not made clear enough in the paper. Laws are not just about rational ethical arguments, because there are many practical, emotional, social aspects that are relevant in policy making (such as respecting the plurality of ethical views, people’s emotional reactions etc). But we are not policy makers, we are philosophers, and we deal with concepts, not with legal policy.”

I minored in philosophy. We kicked around ideas and concepts like that in class all the time. No one actually advocated making them legal public policy, but they were interesting debates and mental exercises. I really think that’s what happened here and people just jumped on it, took it out of context, and blew it out of proportion.

But all of that doesn’t change the fact that logically, if someone is ok with abortion they ought to be ok with infanticide, which is the point they are making. So, as time goes on and more and more people realize this is the logical conclusion of accepting abortion as a moral option where in the world is that going to lead except legalizing infanticide?

 

[sedonaman]

…
I minored in philosophy. We kicked around ideas and concepts like that in class all the time. No one actually advocated making them legal public policy, but they were interesting debates and mental exercises. I really think that’s what happened here and people just jumped on it, took it out of context, and blew it out of proportion.

You never learned that ideas have consequences, did you?
Ideas Have Consequences

Professors are in a position of enormous power and authority in front of the classroom, in molding and shaping young minds, and there is a corresponding responsibility that comes with this position of authority that can leverage the passion and raw energy of youth for good or for evil. To abuse this power is the greatest evil that can lead to horrific consequences as it has since the early 19th century in Germany. The maxim that “ideas have consequences” is well known. Moreover, dangerous ideas and the manner in which they are disseminated can lead to dangerous consequences. Accordingly, their purveyors should be held accountable for the results, when the results are world war, mass-murder, genocide, or Holocaust.
…
It is worth remembering that not all academics in the German university of the 1930s allowed themselves to be sucked into the Nazi maelstrom. There were a few with the integrity to stand up against the storm, hold onto their beliefs, who paid the price, and there were also a few who lived to tell their stories. Victor Klemperer, a professor of Literature at the University of Dresden, already in the minority for his unpopular views on the French Enlightenment, and formerly a Jew, was expelled after the Nuremberg Laws were enacted. To his great dismay, faculty, former friends, and colleagues deserted him. He witnessed them grovel at the feet of the Nazis, compromise their consciences and bend their scholarship to the Nazis’ will. He observed the fake righteous self-interest of his contemporaries vying with one another to achieve coveted Nazi credentials. They were the guilty party, not the ordinary Germans. Given the opportunity to mete out punishment after it’s all over, he wrote the following in one of his published diaries, I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1933-1941:

If one day the situation were reversed and the fate of the vanquished lay in my hands, then I would let all the ordinary folk go and even some of the leaders, who might perhaps after all have had honorable intentions and not known what they were doing. But I would have all the intellectuals strung up, and the professors three feet higher than the rest; they would be left hanging from the lampposts for as long as was compatible with hygiene.Unquote

Here is another thought: There has been a resurgence of anti-Semitism in academia. This professor should be fired immediately, if not sooner, before he/she and people like her can do any more damage, because there were undoubtedly people in Germany who just let it slide when Hitler came to power. Before you dismiss me as some kind of nut, consider what Hayek wrote in 1943: “It is a common mistake to regard National Socialism as a mere revolt against reason, an irrational movement without intellectual background. If that were so, the movement would be much less dangerous than it is.” – F. A. Road to Serfdom, Chapter 12. “The Socialist Roots of Nazism”

So, heil, professor!

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“There is a tendency for a principle to expand itself beyond the limit of its logic.” – Justice Benjamin Cardozo