41 Comments

1. Chris says:
   March 1, 2012 at 3:04 am

   ‘How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?’ logic-chopping for the 21st century. Now with added baby-killing headline grabbery.

   The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

   Three people who need new careers more suited to their intellectual talents; sweeping the streets perhaps.
2. Bob says:
   March 1, 2012 at 3:18 am

   But it’s peer reviewed - It must be true!
3. Curmudgeon says:
   March 1, 2012 at 3:36 am

   I vaguely recall the great Peter Simple referring to post-birth abortion in satirical terms.
4. ian (not that one) b says:
   March 1, 2012 at 3:43 am

   Without reading the actual paper, I’m not jumping to any conclusions. I don’t trust the Telegraph (or any other newspaper) to get a report on philosophy right. I doubt that the journalists have read it either.

   So - in that context three possibilities:

   1 - it is every bit as evil as it sounds
   2 - it is some sort of Swiftean satire aimed at the converse argument that personhood begins at the moment of conception.
   3 - despite their academic pretensions they simply see this as an exercise and don’t have a clue that people might take this at face value.

   One clue comes in a quote from the Journal’s editor:

   “He said the journal would consider publishing an article positing that, if there was no moral difference between abortion and killing newborns, then abortion too should be illegal.”
5. Kevin B says:
   March 1, 2012 at 3:44 am

   When I first saw this I thought is was some sort of piss poor attempt at a Swiftian Modest Proposal, but it seems these fuckers really are serious.

   As an old codger, I’m becoming used to the intimation that I might be a burden on ’society’, so I’ve been expecting the ’scientific’ case for putting down people like me; “Poor old fellow. It’d be a mercy really. He’s had a good innings.” etc. etc.* but this one surprised me. I suppose it shouldn’t be a shock, but it was.

   *”No I haven’t! Fuck Off you greedy bastards and leave me alone! Get off my lawn!”
6. Dick Puddlecote says:
   March 1, 2012 at 5:33 am

   I was sent the study a couple of days ago and steered well clear. On reading it, I was more inclined to believe it was cleverly done to make the point that abortion itself is wrong (as alluded to by Ian and Kevin above). The comment at the end by Dr Stammers about “pre-natal infanticide” may well have been exactly what the authors were hoping for.
7. Laird says:
   March 1, 2012 at 7:36 am

   I see that the journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, has been the recipient of death threats. I can’t see why that would upset him or anybody else. After all, he’s clearly not an “actual person” in the sense of “subject of a moral right to life.”
8. RAB says:
   March 1, 2012 at 7:36 am

   I think we can discount the idea that this is a Trojan Horse for anti-abortion legislation, ladies and gentlemen, as the lead author really means what he says on the tin of Zyclon B…

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Savulescu
9. John Galt says:
   March 1, 2012 at 7:50 am

   WORDS. FUCKING. FAIL. ME.

   I’ve heards some bollocks spouted about moral equivellence, but that not only takes the biscuit, it takes all the fucking biscuits that have, were or will ever be made.

   Shooting is too good for them.
10. JuliaM says:
    March 1, 2012 at 7:56 am

    “…cleverly done to make the point that abortion itself is wrong (as alluded to by Ian and Kevin above).”

    That may be so. And that may be obvious to us.

    But to some people? It may justl be gospel…
11. Nelsontouch says:
    March 1, 2012 at 8:15 am

    The Chinese Communist government, enforcing the one-child policy, allows late-term abortions. But they draw the line at infanticide.

    I recall hearing Enoch Powell once, speaking about abortion. He said it would one day be banned.
    Because it was repugnant. Simply repugnant. It would be banned. I doubt it - but a move to reduce the age limit is feasible.

    Personally I don’t understand the argument that a foetus that can’t live outside the womb can be aborted.
    If it can’t live outside the womb, it should be left there.
12. PeterT says:
    March 1, 2012 at 8:21 am

    If one accepts that:

    a) personhood is something that a human being obtains gradually, and is not born with, and therefore that
    b) at some point a human obtains a sufficient amount of whatever it is that makes a person, and so becomes a person
    c) personhood is what is important, and what gives a human being rights

    Then all you need to do, in order to reach the conclusions of the authors, is to assume that the point at which a human being becomes a person is sometime after birth.

    It has been asked many times what really distinguishes a one week old child with a child one week before birth. Morally I think not much. The proper conclusion to draw though, it seems to me, is that the point at which a human being becomes a person is quite some time before birth. This is not a logically superior position to that of the authors, who went the other way, but it is less lazy. I think part of ethics should be to take the less convenient position if in doubt.
13. Paul Marks says:
    March 1, 2012 at 9:28 am

    The name “Minerva” is not an apt one (as Minerva, the Roman version of Athena, was the Goddess of Wisdom - and these Oxford people, although they may be very clever, are not wise).

    As for the proposal - infanticide.

    It is a common one now.

    Comrade Barack voted for it as a State Senator (back when he lived in the Hyde Park area of Chicago - with lot of other “intellectuals” who followed the path of evil).

    Prof Singer (of Princeton) suggests babies be eaten (no he is not doing a Swift thing - no irony), and he is considered a leading modern “moral philospher”.

    The Christain religion is in decline - so its ethical system (naturally enough) is in decline also.

    Back in Classical times unwanted babies were thrown (alive) into rubbish heaps to be eaten by rats (what a waste Peter Singer would say - they should have been properly cooked and….)

    And people (quite normal people - not special monsters) amused themselves by acts of violence against the helpless - which were quite “legal” (by the laws of Rome) and not hidden any way.

    Why hide such acts (such as making slaves fight to the death in front of you - or cutting bits off a slave at a fashionable dinner party, yes I have been watching a certain television series….) you have done nothing to be ashamed of!

    Christians have done terrible things - and been denounced for it (from the Church Fathers, right to Montesquie and onwards).

    But the people of the Classical world were not denoucned for their sins - because (to the leading people of their time) that was not their ethical system.

    I would argue that if one examines the ethical writings of such nonChristians as Aristotle and Cicero, they (if they were being consistent) should have denounced much of the doings of their time.

    But then I believe in universal moral law (whether there is a God or not) - but the fact remains that such behaviour was not denounced.

    The closest one gets to opposition is (for example) the contempt Marcus Aurelius expresses (in his “Meditations”) for people who go to the games, to see men forced to fight each to the death, or torn to pieces by wild animals.

    But he never thouht of banning such things - or even stopping the government subsidy of them (”bread and games” remember).

    Any more than he banned people killing babies - if this amused them.
14. john b says:
    March 1, 2012 at 11:56 am

    The anger in the comments here seems bizarrely misplaced.

    Some people have published an interesting paper that uses logical thought to come to unsettling conclusions (unsettling unless, as some people have noted, you already follow the hardline view of the RCC that conception = has a soul = full-on person with all the rights of a five-year-old or an adult).

    The challenge set down for society in general and for ethicists in particular is “how can you justify adopting a cut-off point later than the RCC view in a way that also allows for our moral repugnance at killing babies who have been born?”. There are various possible answers to this question, which is an interesting subject for debate and should lead people on all sides of the debate to think harder about their moral position on abortion (”thinking harder about your moral position” is a good thing, which everyone should do). ”

    “EFF OFF YOU’RE WORSE THAN HITLER” doesn’t seem like a particularly good response to that challenge. It’s almost as if the people who are angry have been confronted by their inability to intellectually substantiate their own beliefs, or something…
15. Bob says:
    March 1, 2012 at 6:23 pm

    Goodness john b, if you’re going to describe the RCC position as “hardline”, you could at least get their position right! The RCC has never taught (although individual theologians have argued) that the rational soul is infused at conception.

    The basis of RCC arguments is that the conceptus is an immature human being (note, not a necessarily a human “person”, whatever that means), that has within itself all the active potency it needs to develop into a mature human being. At conception, the continuum of human “being” has started; it is not some other type of “being” that is yet to become human.
16. fake says:
    March 1, 2012 at 8:33 pm

    Meh.

    I have always thought a baby doesn’t become a person until a few days/weeks/months until after birth, until then it’s just an animal.

    Can you remember your first few years of life? I can’t, and wouldn’t say you are self aware until a few years old and actually develop a memory. So yea, don’t really see much of a difference between a unborn and born baby except for piles of shitty nappies.

    Now I don’t actually agree with abortion, as I try to respect life, even if that life is animal/not properly self aware, no I don’t believe in a sky wizard.

    But if you agree with abortion of pre-born babies, what’s so different about a born baby other than “awww isn’t it cute”.
17. Single Acts of Tyranny says:
    March 1, 2012 at 9:03 pm

    @ John B “The anger in the comments here seems bizarrely misplaced”

    Really? As someone who supports the non-aggression principle, it is surely a reasonable stance not to support killing babies?

    Might I suggest a simple test to see if the ethics espoused by these people stands up, or is simply navel gazing. If you killed one of their kids three days after birth, would they

    (a) say it was a non-person anyway so ‘meh’ or
    (b) call the police

    QED
18. NickM says:
    March 1, 2012 at 9:49 pm

    fake,
    Except you got ultrasound. People - I’ve seen them - say about a baby in utero, “Isn’t he/she cute”. My take is that whilst it would be silly to deny life starts at conception, meaningful life doesn’t start until the ol’ neuron’s start firing. And most medical research points to not before 23 weeks at the earliest. Let’s be very conservative here. Call it 20. So, abortion up to 20 weeks is fine. After that it’s murder. Now let me engage in a reverie… In the near future (and Rick Santorum be buggered) contraception (in particular implants) will probably make abortion largely obsolete. But abortion (with nothing going-on in the noggin) seems OK. Sub-optimal - obviously but OK. The idea of a right to life from conception is bizarre. It seems to me to be a form of category error in that it conflates the potential with the actual. At this point it is probably worth pointing out my generation has never really seen sex and reproduction as strictly linked. Chemically induced sterility is the norm (apart from slags trying to get a bigger council house by pupping for Britain) and having children is something folks try because they definitely want ‘em. It isn’t just something that happens when a Mummy and Daddy love each other very much and have a special hug.

    As to the article itself. I’m with Ian (not that one)’s option 2. This is a thought experiment. It is how I think. How does a physicist get a handle on an equation? You let variables slide to zero or infinity. You look at the issue in extremis. But an equation isn’t as important as a baby? Well, yes and no. Compared to the past we in the developed world have a staggeringly low rate of infant mortality and that is because we do science and not witchcraft. So whilst a baby is more important than an equation for a sizeable number of kids it was the equations that let them live.

    So a while back my mate’s wife gives birth by C-section. If that had been au natural in the yurt (and not in a hospital in Yorkshire) the odds are I would have attended two funerals and not had to buy something multi-coloured and chew-proof from Daisy & Toms in Manchester (alas now shut).

    Yes, there is a real issue here. Where to draw the line. I can draw the line on the basis of neural activity and I think that works but to draw the line on the basis that something magic happens from in-utero to ex-utero is bizarre. Or let’s put it otherwise. Alison had a C-section because the baby was over due. In a real sense that kid was as old as a week from birth “on the dot” delivery when she was being cut. Basically the kid didn’t want to leave home. I hate to break it to Mike but he’s probably going to have that problem again about 15-20 years from now…
19. RAB says:
    March 1, 2012 at 11:20 pm

    Nobody read my link then?

    No this is not a Swiftian satire, the guy really means it…

    Savulescu argues that humanity is on the brink of disappearing in a metaphorical ‘Bermuda Triangle’ – unless certain eugenic steps are taken to correct what he considers to be aberrant human behaviour and overly liberal laws.

    He is obviously not content with humans being what they are, but what he wishes them to be. I’d rather he was kept away from such decision making myself.

    On a personal note, the wife and I have no children, because we have never wanted them, so we use contraception. However if we had managed to conceive a child, we would certainly not abort it. You see I believe that I have been given the most wonderful gift possible by nature, existence, and I would not deny it to a proto person that I was responsible for. I will not forbid abortion to others though, because what they do with their bodies in none of my business and a matter for their consciences alone.

    Yes it is really a question of where you draw the line. So I will go with Nick’s neuron activity.

    As to earliest memories, well maybe I’m unusual, but I can remember incidents from my first year of life. I can remember being in my pram, and yes throwing my toys out of it, and it was the first time I actually realised that I was having an effect on my environment and not the other way round, because my mother kept putting them back in again, and me tossing them out again. Good Game! Good Game!

    I was born in 1952 and also remember the Queen’s Coronation as we had a telly and most people didn’t, so I remember all these people suddenly turning up in our house. Also my maternal grandmother dying when I was just two, and the sadness of the occasion. So yes, I have very vivid memories from very early on in my life.
20. Thornavis says:
    March 1, 2012 at 11:59 pm

    RAB

    I don’t want to pour cold water on your memories but are you sure they are yours and not someone else’s ? I used to think that I had early memories too but thinking harder and attempting to tie them in with known facts I think I’ve conflated later events and parent’s stories to produce something like a false memory, not exactly that because some of it did happen, just not in the way I recall and not at the time I imagine. That’s something that happens throughout life and I think that it’s very unlikely that we have any clear memories before the age of about four, maybe your memory is better than mine though, I was also born in 1952 and my earliest reliable ones date from about 1956/57.
    Back on topic, what Nick M said.
21. NickM says:
    March 2, 2012 at 12:18 am

    RAB,
    I guess we all do. Except they do get mythologised somewhat. That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. I do recall dreadful 1970s wallpaper in the kitchen and being bathed in the kitchen sink so that puts a size (and therefore age) on me. I recall my mother using a twin-tub washer and 1979 being declared by the UN “The International Year of the Child.” (Same day!) I even vaguely recall Sunny Jim (I was Thatcher’s brat!) Or Clive Sinclair’s… But it is fogged. It all happened but not necessarily in the order it feels like it did. Let me tell you the most painful thing. I had this most wonderful girlfriend and she disagreed with me. That is when she split up with me. We remembered our first kiss differently. Now, there were lots of reasons to split up - she was in SF and I was in Leeds and no solution to that issue was afoot but, you know you try, but if the entire mythology of the relationship is now false then what are you trying for exactly? And I mean “mythology” - all love stories need a story don[t they?
22. ian (not that one) b says:
    March 2, 2012 at 1:08 am

    RAB - the talk pages are a good link to how credible a Wikipedia entry is. In this case there is only one comment suggesting the article is selective. I don’t know the truth of it, and there have been so many revisions to the article I can’t tell how likely that is.

    Plus of course the editor is not an author. He has accepted the article, and yes the authors appear to be associated with him, but even so that of itself says nothing about HIS position.

    However, on reading the Telegraph article again and assuming that the quotation has not lost significant context, one sentence leapt out at me:

    …they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”.

    They obviously have a very peculiar definition of damage.
23. RAB says:
    March 2, 2012 at 3:41 am

    Another of us old codgers then Thornavis?

    I have had this discussion many times, mainly with people who have done Psychology, Sociology or Teaching, having had Piaget thrust down their throats. My memory IS extremely sharp and very long. I have various ideas as to why.

    1. I am an only child, so have no siblings to confuse memories with ” No that happened to your brother” etc.

    2. My early childhood was punctuated with some very memorable events. The Coronation of course, when we had a house full of people, 30 plus all making a fuss of me. My grandmother dying when I was two, and I loved my gran to bits, and can still remember what she looked like. My parents and Grandparents you see had bought the big Edwardian house I was born in when my parents got married, with a view to my Gramp’s retirement. It was in two flats with a huge garden (200 yards long) and every morning I used to rush downstairs to their flat, to get spoiled rotten! Well when Gran died, it was decided to make the two flats back into a whole house again. This involved a lot of work, putting back in an internal staircase, new fireplaces etc etc. I could hardly have failed to notice this major work now could I? I vividly remember eating raw Rhubarb dipped in sugar with the workmen who I followed about from dawn to dusk, there was loads of it in the garden. That’s another thing, tastes and smells, especially the first time you encountered them, they bring memories flooding back.

    3. The only kids I played with before I went to school (aged four and remember my first day like yesterday) were Bronnie and Howard, she 6 and he 9, who lived next door. I always hung out with kids older than me growing up, I used to find kids my own age, well frankly a bit childish.

    4. From very young, if told a story, and especially when I learnt to read, developed a technique of playing the story back in my head like a movie, before I went to sleep. It has stayed with me ever since, which also stretches to everyday events.

    I could go on, but whether you believe me or not, I really do have a very good, long and pretty accurate memory. It has been my saving grace, as I consider myself only averagely intellegent.

    Well here is an update on the story ian (nto) b, with a lot of re-hashing. It seems to have been pounced upon by pro-lifers who want to make abortion illegal, but I still maintain that that is the exact opposite of what the writers intended.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9116111/Killing-babies-article-reveals-the-truth-of-abortion-say-pro-lifers.html
24. Sam Duncan says:
    March 2, 2012 at 4:16 am

    I can’t add anything much to Nick’s reply to Fake. Says it all.

    And if you’re not going to use the perfectly logical - and in the modern world, eminently discoverable - deadline of neural activity, then birth seems to be the next most obvious one, being the point where a child begins independent respiration. “Potential human”, my arse: once you’re breathing, with your own separate circulatory and digestive systems and all the little grey cells firing, you’re an individual human being. Not much of one yet, not one you could hold a conversation with, or get help with the decorating from, but one all the same. Brain death and loss of respirotary function are generally the two critera for the end of life, aren’t they? So the opposite should apply for the start of it.

    Indeed, once you start classifying independently-respirating and thinking individuals as not-really-human, you’re putting yourself in the much the same camp as the eugenicists with their “unproductive” “useless” “imbeciles”. Not a good place to be.
25. kevin smith says:
    March 2, 2012 at 4:37 am

    Calm Down Dears!
    at this time, at this place, killing and eating babies is well out of fashion. Sheesh, some people should not read philosophy.
    Who now remembers the 1959 BBC Documentary ‘The Hunt for Britains Homos’?
26. Thornavis says:
    March 2, 2012 at 4:42 am

    RAB

    I certainly don’t disbelieve you, just wondering and I’m still not sure if any of my ‘early’ memories are entirely real or not, I’m the oldest of my siblings so there’s no other early memories to get confused with and I have at least one that I think might be genuine but I can’t put definite dates to things so there’s no way of knowing. My mother is a great source of family stories, with tales stretching back to the late nineteenth century and some of her stories about me when small may have become lodged in my mind as my own recollections. I still think, from comparing with other people rather than any psychological standpoint, that it’s unusual for memory to kick in much before four or five, you may be one of the lucky exceptions.
27. RAB says:
    March 2, 2012 at 5:21 am

    It must be just me then Thornavis, everybody knows I’m weird by now!

    I do get confused sometimes, of course, who doesn’t? I was telling a friend about seeing one of my all time faves Tim Buckley, open for the Rolling Stones at Knebworth in 1976, a while back. When I checked, just out of interest, I found that it was 1974 and the Allman Brothers. I blame the drugs myself, I was ripped to the tits on both occasions But still not bad memory-wise… right position on bill, right venue, just the wrong year, and given the number of gigs I’ve been to in my life, I can be allowed a little confusion surely?

    Anyway, completely off topic… Happy St David’s Day my Welsh Boyo’s and girlo’s, you know who you are. Looks like we could be on for another Grand Slam at the Rugby in a few weeks. The French game is going to be the grudge one. It was like proper Spring here today. Perfick!
28. ian (not that one) b says:
    March 2, 2012 at 8:59 am

    I’m not surprised that an article like this should be picked up, regardless of the author’s intentions, and used to argue against abortion. It was probably inevitable. When we get into areas like this logic and common sense very rapidly go out of the window.
29. john b says:
    March 2, 2012 at 12:00 pm

    Single Acts: this is an ethics paper, not a political manifesto. Of course he’d call the police if you killed his newborn. The point is, there is an interesting inconsistency in different moral intuitions, which is worth thinking about.
30. APL says:
    March 2, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    To paraphrase: “I would rather obtain ethical guidance from the first 400 names in the telephone book than the entire faculty of Oxford University”.
31. berenike says:
    March 2, 2012 at 7:08 pm

    Well, at least some people bothered to think instead of screaming ‘ITLER!

    Ian not that one B:

    Havenae read the paper, just a couple of things in the Telegraph, but the authors are hardly making any massive leaps in their reasoning. Given you can be aborted at any time if you’re severely disabled (including, it seems, have a cleft palate), why should a disabled child born prematurely have a protection in law that he or she wouldn’t have had, had he or she stayed put in the womb? Surely if your insides are churning at the idea of killing little born disabled babies, they should be churning at the idea of killing little unborn ones.

    Not arguing against abortion here, just pointing out that you can hardly justifiably be outraged by this article and not be equally outraged by the legality of abortion at least after 24 weeks or so.
32. NickM says:
    March 2, 2012 at 8:04 pm

    berenike,
    UK abortion law is a mess. And yes cleft lip/palate can be used to justify abortion. I recall a few years back a CofE vicar who was born with a cleft lip and had it fixed as an infant campaigning over this obscenity. It is hardly a significant disability - well it is if untreated but if you read the “quality” press there is almost always a charity saying they do it in Africa and pointing out how little in time and money fixing it takes. In this here country it is perverse to abort a child because the alternative is relatively minor plastic surgery. It’s, I guess, down to wanting babies to be “perfect”. Well, they ain’t going to be perfect adults are they. No one is.
33. fake says:
    March 2, 2012 at 8:27 pm

    neurons firing?

    What are they, electrical impulses, I turn my computer off every night (reducto absurdiam or whatever, I know), why should neurons firing be a definition of self aware life?

    We have decided they should be, that’s why, maybe it’s correct, but only the sith deal in absolutes (About the only fucking good thing about the prequels that saying).

    Notice I say “self aware life”, babies are by definition human, but are they people, are they yet self aware, or are they still animal?

    Respiratory system, walking, holding objects, well animals can do all those things, hell so can computers now.

    What’s the difference between someone who’s brain-dead, and a new born baby with an empty mind, one ain’t going anywhere, the other has the potential to develop and grow into a person, but then so does sperm.

    So I struggle to see any difference between killing an animal and a newborn, other than one has the capability to become more, but then again, so does sperm.

    (And no, I aint saying it’s OK to kill babies, I am a pasty faced veggie)
34. NickM says:
    March 3, 2012 at 12:42 am

    fake,
    God knows so we leave it to doctors who know more than God - or at least they claim so. I think it comes down to a duty of care. You got a baby or a kitten or a fish tank - no they are not exactly persons as such but they are dependents. Do any of the above have rights? Tricky but is that the point? We have obligations. I am about to go down the road an buy a can of Coke. In the extremely unlikely event I find an abandoned infant (or kitten) I am not going to walk on by any more than I would an injured adult. I will do my best and call the appropriate services if needed. And so would you. I felt the same when my Gran descended into the abyss of Alzheimer’s disease. She was in a sense no longer my Gran but I still had a duty of care even if it was at times awful. There can be a fine line between “carer” and “jailor”.

    As to computers… As far as we know they are very far from being self-aware or feeling stuff or whatever. Yes, I have thought on it. Potentially a smart enough machine could be construed as something other than a machine but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. We are nowhere near. This is what I thought and I have a scheme for a short-story. What if Freud’s discredited theories aren’t true of humans but a machine could be made like that? What if de-bugging the computers of the future required psychanalysis?
35. ian (not that one) b says:
    March 3, 2012 at 7:09 am

    Actually I think computers are self- aware - they just haven’t told us yet…
36. Paul Marks says:
    March 3, 2012 at 7:23 am

    I read your link RAB.

    And I know it is not satire.

    Nor was what I wrote made up - Comrade Barack did vote for babies who had survived abortion to be put to death (infanticide).

    “An interesting paper” - John please try not to be an arsehole, sorry if that is “angry” (no - I am not sorry) but if you can not see that murdering babies is a bad thing then there is something seriously wrong with you.

    Still this attitude would have altered history a bit.

    For example - in relation to my last post…..

    When Marie Therasa fled into Hungary (the lands of the Hapsburgs were “multicultural” as we would say today - which is why the language of administration was Latin), and appealed to Magyars…..

    In this verison of reality M.T. appealed to the Magyar people with her baby in her arms - and they rose “as if one man” and drove back the armies of Frederick the Great.

    In the “interesting paper” version of reality, the people would have gone “yum, yum” and eaten the baby.

    “No Paul, you have got it all wrong - the mother would have to give her consent, and there is no mention of eating the baby”.

    Oh - silly me. That makes it all right then.

    Interesting people these “ethical philosophers” - Frederick the Great would have loved them.

    And I am not being sarcastic - he would have loved them.

    In vital ways (love of collectivist “planning”, contempt for tradition, “intellecualism” utterly divorced from common sense…..) they are his children.
37. DeNihilist says:
    March 3, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    K, here’s the journal link, the editors response and letters and, and, and……

    http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.abstract
38. john b says:
    March 4, 2012 at 11:00 am

    Paul, you’re still completely missing the point.

    Nobody is claiming that murdering newborns is OK. The fact that nobody believes that murdering newborns is OK is precisely why the paper is interesting, and why it exists.

    The paper is examining the question of *why* we (in the sense of ’society in general’ - obviously hardline anti-abortionists are consistent, but they’re a minority) view killing newborns as an appalling and despicable act, whilst accepting the killing of foetuses that are not distinguishable from newborns in any obvious way beyond their physical location.

    Only someone with the intellectual capacity of a venus fly trap could mistake that for claiming that murdering babies is OK.
39. NickM says:
    March 5, 2012 at 6:07 am

    john b,
    I actually commentated earlier before reading the link DeNihilist put up. None of us are thinking of infanticide but seriously that is what that paper (frequently not just bad but mad though it is) does advocate. Except it doesn’t exactly for the simple reason it at times lacks any basic coherence. Why else would the authors argue for the infanticide/abortion of the healthy kids but also stash in there the disability clause. Yes, they do go on about birth defects and such but then switch to it being OK for social or economic (that reaally chilled me) reasons without a disability. So why bring-up the “life not worth living thing” if your point is vastly more general than that and based upon the idea that because newborns “lack aims” the aren’t “persons” then why bother making the specialist point about disability?

    I might add disability is relative anyway. A friend of mine has cerebral palsy as a result of his birth. Shortly after birth (in the late ’70s) the docs are like he ain’t going to survive, they then upgrade his status to he’ll never get out of that wheelchair… He is in fine form, early 30s and has a degree, a house, a car and a dog. I worry for him because he is a mental driver (strictly speaking I worried more for me in shotgun when he took that Clio to warp-factor 9) and skier. The CP won’t put him back in a wheelchair but some of his Alpinism just might! Or his driving. So define a life “worth living”. They don’t even try. They munter about “intolerable pain” but never define it. They advocate something intrinsically biazarre. They say if late term abortion is OK (they never justify that) then so is infanticide. That is like me aarguing that if it’s OK to commit regicide against the King of Spain then why not the Emperor of Japan? No, it’s sloppier than that. It’s like if it’s OK to steal your laptop it’s OK to steal your telly. Of course it is because one follows from the other but only if the first is fine.

    The paper is unbelievable (in every sense) guff and not just because it is morally vile though it is utterl repugnant). Do read it. Their view on adoption is mind-bending. They argue that giving a newborn up for adoption is possibly more harmful than killing him or her. Seriiously! Their point is that the irrevocability of what I can only term murder brings closure. They seem to think a mother will wonder if the child is still alive but won’t if it’s been killed. Sorry, no. My Gran had a miscarriage followed by a hysterectomy. In her 70s she wondered about the child she lost. I can only guess that if she brought the kid to term and (for whatever reasons) gave him up for adoption she’d also have been pondering but perhaps happy in a way to think the child had a loving family and a shot at life.

    Of course this never happened nor was it likely to.

    The entire article is like someone self-fought themselves into a complete corner. No wonder RAB took umbrage. I was stunned by it.
40. DeNihilist says:
    March 6, 2012 at 3:09 pm

    anyone ever heard of a Mr. Hawkins? of course then you could always say, anyone ever heard of a mister Bundy?

    The thing that caught my eye was I believe the third letter to the journal, stating the history of this line of thought, and how the nazis had used it. Never knew that and that was what made me realize just how vile this type of philosophical argument really is. But would I censor this? nope. but I am stoaked to see humanity rise up as they have this time round.
41. Paul Marks says:
    March 9, 2012 at 5:51 pm

    What Nick said.

    Sorry John - you think these people are making a wise point, they are not.

    You remind me of my father (and I am not insulting you - I admired my father).

    When he first read T. Dreiser (spelling alert) account of Soviet Russia, he (my Dad) assumed) that Dreiser was being ironic and was making a wise attack on the Soviets.

    No - the writer really did like the Soviet Union, he was an arsehole.

    Many people (including many very intelligent people) make the same mistake with Plato. Saying (for example) that Plato’s “Republic” is an ATTACK upon totalitarianism (even “the greatest attack ever written” - Allan Bloom from his “Afterward” to his translation of the work).

    No Plato was not being ironic - sadly the “greatest philosopher of the Western Civilization” and so on, was just an arsehole.

    People (especially intelligent people) often “read in” to works like this, stuff that is not there.

    “They must be thinking…..”

    No they are not.