AFTER-BIRTH ABORTIONS
Comments by Brian Morley:
According to two ethicists writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics,
killing a newborn should be allowed in all cases in which abortion is allowed,
including in cases where the newborn is not disabled and would lead a
normal life. Newborns are not persons, they contend, but they can develop
into persons. And only persons have a right to life.
The authors are not on the lunatic fringe of society. One is a professor
at the University of Milan and is a scholar at the Centre for Human Bioethics
at Monash University, Australia. The other is at the Centre for Applied
Philosophy and Public Ethics and the University of Melbourne, and is at the
Oxford Uehir Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University.
Here’s some of the reasoning:
Although fetuses and newborns are not persons, they are
potential persons because they can develop, thanks to their own
biological mechanisms, those properties which will make them
‘persons’ in the sense of ‘subjects of a moral right to life’: that is,
the point at which they will be able to make aims and appreciate
their own life.
And,
It is not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from
developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally
relevant sense.
Account of the article:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ethicists-argue-in-favor-of-after-birth-abortions-as-newborns-are-not-persons/
Source article in Journal of Medical Ethics:
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/02/22/medethics-2011-100411.full