From Conservative Hideout 2.0, comes the following information, disturbing in the extreme:
Two ethicists working with Australian universities argue in the latest online edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics that if abortion of a fetus is allowable, so to [sic] should be the termination of a newborn.Who gets decides the fate of "potential persons"?
Alberto Giubilini with Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne write that in “circumstances occur[ing] after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.”
]...]
The two are quick to note that they prefer the term “after-birth abortion“ as opposed to ”infanticide.”...The authors also do not agree with the term euthanasia for this practice as the best interest of the person who would be killed is not necessarily the primary reason his or her life is being terminated. In other words, it may be in the parents’ best interest to terminate the life, not the newborns.
[...]
Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. 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....
Humanity is sinking to the lowest level and in the name of medical ethics.
Back in the days immediately before and after Roe v. Wade, I recall that pro-life folks warned us of the slippery slope. I viewed those folks were paranoid alarmists. Apparently not! We now see medical ethicists advocating a form of eugenics.
Speaking of eugenics, see THIS, also over at Conservative Hideout 2.0: "UK Docs Agree To Do Abortions Based on Gender."
Will the lunatic fringe in the name of "bioethics" soon become mainstream in the name of "bioethics"? See THIS and THIS. The latter is entitled "‘Bioethicists’ and Obama agree: infanticide should be legal."
Hi AOW.
ReplyDeleteAs they say a picture tells a thousand words.
http://www.politifake.org/image/political/1202/this-could-have-been-prevented-obama-preservatives-contrace-politics-1330522563.jpg
More clear and convincing evidence of the moral bankruptcy of our times. Somehow a great many people -- women in particular -- have become divorced from their humanity in favor of the pursuit of status and empty pleasures.
ReplyDeleteI have described myself as "Reluctantly Pro-Choice," but I could never sanction anything like this under any circumstances, unless perhaps the child was a monster of deformity and dysfunction doomed only to be a burden till its inevitably early death. But such cases are extremely rare, thank God.
The reluctance to call it "infanticide," which is exactly what it is tells the whole story. They KNOWN in their heart of hearts they are wrong.
There really is a Devil, isn't there?
~ FreeThinke
FT,
ReplyDeleteMoral bankruptcy, indeed!
Back when I was in college (and later, too), some of my friends had abortions. Not of the revolving-door type. ONE abortion and "lesson learned." Each of these women had their abortions in THE FIRST MONTH on pregnancy. Never, ever, did any of the women I knew consider having an abortion after the 3rd month.
Okay, I can make the case that first-trimester abortions are murder.
However, infanticide (partial-birth abortions and after-birth murders) belong in an evil category all its own.
I did know one woman who aborted "a monster." A Catholic hospital did the procedure in the 5th month -- the situation was that bad.
My sister-in-law was kidnapped and raped. She was held for three days. The first thing the hospital did was a rape kit, followed by a D&C. Was she pregnant? We never knew. The D&C was done to reduce the chances of her contracting a venereal disease. BTW, she testified against the rapist in court; he was extradited to Florida and executed. He was a serial rapist: he had raped at least 30 women and killed at least 3. The authorities never found how just how many women he raped and/or killed!
My father used to say: "Keep your pants on, and you won't get pregnant." Simplistic? Maybe. But that same attitude prevailed throughout my father's family. Not a single one of the daughters got pregnant out of wedlock! Not one! We all knew that if we did get pregnant and did not marry immediately, we would be shunned (Mennonites).
When you make life and death decisions contingent on how people feel about it, emotions, and popular opinion, it is just a dressed-up form of mob rules. Enough thumbs down, the kid (disabled person, old person) dies.
ReplyDeleteThis is the logical extension of the mindset that places convenience of the mother over the fundamental right to life of a human being that happens to not yet have a social security card.
William Briggs, Statistician to the stars, has an excellent post on this topic.
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5304
Abortion has become just another form of birth control. Now life has been cheapened to the extent that some people can even consider after birth abortion as something ethical. I have no words to relate the disgust I feel.
ReplyDelete"When you make life and death decisions contingent on how people feel about it, emotions, and popular opinion, it is just a dressed-up form of mob rules. ..."
ReplyDeleteI couldn't possibly disagree more, SilverFiddle. These particular kinds of decisions should NEVER be made by "the crowd," OR by judges and legislators. They should be made ONLY by the people directly involved. Each such case is UNIQUE, and should be regarded as such. In highly personal matters one size could NEVER be made to fit all.
~ FreeThinke
but we had to know this would be the next step..if they can reach inside and kill a fetus with little compunction or conscience, why not kill it 1" OUTSIDE the womb?
ReplyDeleteDisgusting...so sad, and so scary.
Moral bankruptcy, yes, that is a great term to describe the unethical, immoral, mentality of the Left.
ReplyDeleteThey are no worse than serial killers and murderers of the innocent, they are far worse. They kill the most innocent of human life.
It makes you wonder if these soul-less and heartless people care for anything or anyone. I doubt it.
I believe the term for after birth abortions has legal implications---murder!
ReplyDeleteSome now want parents to have the ability to kill their children even after birth if the find they are mentally or physically challenged. Now which side is evil?
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry about what happened to your sister.
ReplyDeleteI don't think termination during the last 20 weeks of pregnancy should be called an abortion either. If a mother loses her baby during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, it's called a miscarriage or spontaneous abortion. After the 20 weeks mark it's premature birth.
I removed a comment in this thread as that comment violates Caveat: Continued invectives and personal attacks will result in deletion.
ReplyDeleteI'm a conservative but I'm not a religious conservative. This means I don't believe in the sanctity of human life over any other form of life. Except when it comes to my own life and the ones I love.
ReplyDeleteI think women have the right to choose whether to give birth or not. If I were female I'd certainly want the right to choose.
Being a human, I'm pro-human. I feel strongly about protecting children. Just so no one gets the wrong idea.
BUT... I can see a possible day when we are so overcrowded on this planet that children born with severe defects, such as Downs Syndrome for instance, are disposed of as a matter of course. China became so overcrowded that they instituted a 1-child policy to reduce the population, and committed many forced abortions to enforce the rules. Western society isn't immune from becoming the same sort of totalitarian state, and the U.S. is well on the way in that regard. We will soon have drone airplanes wandering the skies over our cities, keeping a Big Brother eye on us, for example, and the burden of laws over us gets more monstrous every day as our freedoms keep fading away. It can happen here.
My understanding of the Roe v. Wade decision is that it focused on the trimesters.
ReplyDeleteDuring the 1st the State had no right which would of course allow for RU486 and other methods
During the 2nd the State may have an interest
During the 3rd The State had an interest.
Although I personally disagree with any abortion with the obvious medical concerns and criminal cases. This framework makes more sense. It would prohibit the more deporable abortion practices that Demos and specifically Obama want made into law, protect mothers who are cvisibly pregnant by making it 2 homicides instead of 1 when she is a victim of DV or other crimes.
Finally, I believe most Americans would agree with this framework...unfortunaelty both "establishment parties" will never actually put a comprehensive Bill up for a vote as that would mean an end to this divisive issue.
I am religious, but appreciate your remarks, Black Sheep and largely concur.
ReplyDeleteI am sick to death of this particular subject, because I truly believe that a fanatical obsession with it as The Paramount Issue of our Time acts as a red herring leading us away from dealing with problems even more fundamental to the future well-being of humanity.
Also, it gives ferocious bigots who live primarily to denigrate, discredit and verbally abuse others a great opportunity to strut their stuff and still appear -- God help us! -- "righteous."
The impulse to micromanage OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES is rooted in humanity's regrettable capacity to indulge in the practice of SADISM -- a perversion that has found infinite ways to cloak itself in the guise of Respectability since time immemorial.
What ELSE do you think The Colosseum, The Crucifixion, The Crusades, The Inquisition, Cromwell's Persecutions, the dreadful deeds of Hernando Cortes, The Salem Witch Trials, The Bolshevik Revolution, and The Third Reich could have been about?
The answer is NOTHING.
Not the love of money but the desire to subjugate others to our will is the Root of All Evil in my never humble opinion.
FT,
ReplyDeleteit gives ferocious bigots who live primarily to denigrate, discredit and verbally abuse others a great opportunity to strut their stuff and still appear -- God help us! -- "righteous."
I hope that I'm not one of those who strut.
But I do know about self-righteous Christians. Self-righteousness was one of the primary flaws of the Pharisees, but Christians often do not realize how much they act like the condemned-by-Christ Pharisees.
Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is centuries old and still applies.
Not the love of money but the desire to subjugate others to our will is the Root of All Evil in my never humble opinion.
I have two laws of history and have shared them with all my history students from 1993 through the present:
1. It's all about the money -- money and power being the same thing.
2. Never trust any politician.
Blogginator,
ReplyDeleteI believe you are correct in that the original framework of Roe v. Wade has been abandoned.
Black Sheep,
ReplyDeleteInteresting comment.
What really frosts me is that many who are fine and dandy with late-term abortions abhor the similar treatment of animals. All those animal-rescue organizations!
Look, I love animals. But they are ANMIALS, not humans.
As "the religious type," I do differ between animals and humans.
Although a lot of humans act much worse than animals.
"I hope that I'm not one of those who strut."
ReplyDeleteNot a CHANCE! ;-)
I know I do it sometimes when I'm all revved up over something, but I think you must know by now that I am quite harmless. I just don't like to see people bullying and badgering each other, and I don't like to see gratuitous insults either.
I just abandoned a friendship that started in 1954, because I got tired of being badgered and cross-examined as though I were The Accused in a Murder Trial, every time I said something my erstwhile friend took exception to. I should add that we took up with one another again only three years ago after a decades-long hiatus. Unfortunately, whatever it was that drew us together as boys had vanished during the years of separation. It took me a long time to admit that, because I'm a bit of a Pollyanna, and hate to admit things are not always "nice," then I think they ought to be. I hate the feeling that comes with disillusionment.
Maybe I really am a leftist at heart, because I despise harassment almost as much as I hate worse forms of sin.
It may be possible to beat others into submission, but that kills forever any chance that they will ever come to love, appreciate or respect whatever it is you forced on them.
~ FreeThinke
While i was waiting for my slow PC to load up the page, a thought occurred to me, even the title of this post doesn't sound right, forget even reading the actual contents of what these morally bankrupt people are talking about.
ReplyDeleteThink about it - The Ethics Of "After-Birth Abortions" - is a bit like - The Ethics Of beheading toddlers! It just beggars belief that this sort of evil is even up for discussion. And here's why.
"Back in the days immediately before and after Roe v. Wade, I recall that pro-life folks warned us of the slippery slope."
Back when i first started blogging and reading up about politics and such crucial issues, this occurred to me. Once you open that gate, any old evil is then up for grabs and that's the logical conclusion.
If you can kill them in the womb, why not just after birth and if that why not if they turn out to be retarded, disabled etc. Why can't we kill people who have lost limbs or become paralyzed. On and on it'll go until evil consumes us completely. And we all know that we humans are perfectly capable of it.
That is why we have to fight evil and resist it at every turn, no quarter given, give it nothing. It's the only way to escape being consumed.
The Wages of Sin
ReplyDeleteDreary and confounding though it be
Each nubile female must be made to face
A battery of choices seriously ––
The wrong one could bring sorrow and disgrace.
Harvesting the crop from seeds we sow
Our choice to gratify ourselves might win
Fearful consequences, if we fail to show
Awareness of the pain that follows sin.
Zygotes inadvertently conceived
Yield far-reaching complications dire.
Gestation offer duties unrelieved,
Or the alternative the prospect of hellfire.
The choice to live life loosely takes a toll
Excluding most things charming, fun and droll.
~ FreeThinke - 3/3/12
This is sickening. And almost straight out of the Giver. As a mentally disabled and accidental pregnacy kid, I would hate to think that abortion exists. Specially since I would have been targeted.
ReplyDeleteLook, I get the argument for a baby not being alive till they are born (disagree heavily, but understand) but after they are born they are ALIVE. And until the defination for being alive changed (as breathing and brain waves don't count it seems- veggy patiants crowd hospitals, yet babies don't fall under this?) then newborns are alive, and it is basically murder.
And from another point, why have this? You can know weeks before and if a child is disabled or undesirable, and certainly can decided. Why after birth? That makes no logical sense. Unless, of course, as an open gate to other practices ie The Giver.
-Wildstar
Wildstar,
ReplyDeleteI, too, thought of the similarities with The Giver.
By the way, I don't think of you as mentally disabled. Quirky? Sure! But quirky is interesting.
However, your point is well taken that you might well have been aborted -- especially if early-term abortion had been free.
after they are born they are ALIVE
Indeed!
It should be clear to ANYONE that "after-birth abortion" is infanticide. Euphemisms don't change the reality!
Wildstar,
ReplyDeleteBTW, some years ago, I tutored a high-functioning Downs Syndrome boy who was being mainstreamed in the public school system. I can't tell you how much The Giver, required reading in his class, upset this young man! The same goes for Of Mice and Men, also required reading in his class. The young man became so angry and so agitated that I had to stop tutoring him -- for my own personal safety. He DID actually attack me! The attack wasn't personal but rather heightened frustration with the books that the class was reading. Eventually, the mother had to withdraw him from public school -- should have done so much earlier, IMO.
Right Wing Theocrat,
ReplyDeleteThe Ethics Of "After-Birth Abortions" - is a bit like - The Ethics Of beheading toddlers! It just beggars belief that this sort of evil is even up for discussion
Yes, it is surreal -- and EVIL!
FT,
ReplyDeleteThe choice to live life loosely takes a toll
That is definitely the bottom line in all this!
As my father used to say, "Keep your pants on."