After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

[Third]

How can this even be called abortion - once the child leaves his\her mother's body?

Killing a baby once it's left the mother's body is murder. I don't see how people could be confused in that. Even if the baby is unwanted or really sick. This isn't me being against choice this is me being a half decent human being.

[emmiedahl]

Emmie, I completely agree. I guess what I was trying to say is that it's difficult to find problems with the internal logic of the paper's argument. The paper does make it a "personhood" question, but also explains why the authors think it should be a personhood question. It is assumed in moral philosophy that these issues (abortion, etc.) are essentially "personhood" questions, because only a "person" is the subject of moral rights* and especially the moral right to life (Michael Tooley, 1972). So the paper also proceeds on those intradisciplinary assumptions.

While I agree with you when you say "it shouldn't be a question of personhood, but rather a question of X," I see this as a challenge to the paper's approach, and not evidence of a problem in its argument. I would really like it if someone could find a problem in the argument besides the one I mentioned.

*except for the right not to suffer/have pain inflicted.

The problem with their argument is that they DO make it a personhood issue in the first place. Strawman fallacy: pick something completely beside the point and argue that instead.

[chiccy]

The problem with their argument is that they DO make it a personhood issue in the first place. Strawman fallacy: pick something completely beside the point and argue that instead.

But if the fetus did have a moral right to life, abortion would be unjustifiable even for the sake of protecting a woman's privacy and sovereignty. I do not agree with Valsa that the latter concern would outweigh the former; that seems to me absurd. Protection of one's own privacy never takes legal or moral precedence to protection of another's life.

This is all hypothetical, of course; please no one accuse me of making a pro-life argument. I'm simply trying to point out why I think personhood is indeed an issue.

[dramallama]

The right to life does not always supersede the right to bodily autonomy/sovereignty. People can't be legally compelled to donate their kidneys or their bone marrow, or a lobe of a lung, or a chunk of their liver, even if they're the only available match for a dying person. Even if that dying person is their child, or parent, or sibling.

Additionally, pregnancy is inherently risky for the woman - your blood volume doubles, your heart enlarges, excess strain is placed on every bodily system and women die or are permanently harmed from pregnancy and childbirth complications every single day in every country around the world. Like you can't compel a person to undergo the risk of organ donation for the sake of another's life, you can't compel a woman to undergo the inherent and unavoidable risks of pregnancy and childbirth for the sake of another's life.

[chiccy]

The right to life does not always supersede the right to bodily autonomy/sovereignty. People can't be legally compelled to donate their kidneys or their bone marrow, or a lobe of a lung, or a chunk of their liver, even if they're the only available match for a dying person. Even if that dying person is their child, or parent, or sibling.

Additionally, pregnancy is inherently risky for the woman - your blood volume doubles, your heart enlarges, excess strain is placed on every bodily system and women die or are permanently harmed from pregnancy and childbirth complications every single day in every country around the world. Like you can't compel a person to undergo the risk of organ donation for the sake of another's life, you can't compel a woman to undergo the inherent and unavoidable risks of pregnancy and childbirth for the sake of another's life.

Great points/example; I stand corrected.

[bananacat]

[

I have 2 issues with this. First, having a child with a severe disability is not a bad thing. I really hate it when people assume a disability means that the child and the family will have a horrible quality of life. I teach Special Ed in an urban public school for children with multiple disabilities (intellectual and physical) and i can tell you that these children and families are not "cursed." Most of them are very happy. I also have an uncle with severe intellectual disabilities, and I wouldn't trade him for the world. Granted, disabilities pose more of a challenge to parents, but that doesn't mean we should be aborting and/or killing all fetuses/babies with disabilities.

First of all, nobody is saying that all women should have abortions if they find that their fetus has disabilities. Stop using that strawman because it's incredibly, unbelievably, offensively dishonest for you to suggest such a thing.

Second, the happy families that you know that have children with disabilities already chose to not have an abortion. But, since it was a choice, it's wrong to think that other women who did have abortions would be as happy if they had not had that choice. If you leave the choice up to the woman, then the families that have what it takes to raise a child with special needs will have them, and the parents who just can't do it won't do it. Children with disabilities deserve parents who can give them what they need, both physically and emotionally. It doesn't benefit anyone to force a special needs child into a woman that would have otherwise had an abortion.

[ItISjustme]

Abortion is legal within certain legal constraints. This isn't abortion, this is infanticide which is not legal.

This paper is just academics doing what they love to do, exercise their superior intellectual powers in the rarefied atmosphere of their workplace without any regard for what happens in the real world. The authors are probably amazed at the fuss that has ensued.

[jaelh]

Abortion is legal within certain legal constraints. This isn't abortion, this is infanticide which is not legal.

This paper is just academics doing what they love to do, exercise their superior intellectual powers in the rarefied atmosphere of their workplace without any regard for what happens in the real world. The authors are probably amazed at the fuss that has ensued.

Prob not - it's Peter Singer's old department and the fuss is par for the course. They've been positing stuff like this for years. It's nothing particularly new.

[ItISjustme]

Prob not - it's Peter Singer's old department and the fuss is par for the course. They've been positing stuff like this for years. It's nothing particularly new.

So they haven't learnt any humility, then?

[synchroswimr]

My issue with this is that my belief in choice is based on a belief in medical autonomy and privacy. Once the baby leaves your body, it is no longer your personal health issue.

I totally agree with this.

[CanadianHippie]

My issue with this is that my belief in choice is based on a belief in medical autonomy and privacy. Once the baby leaves your body, it is no longer your personal health issue.

That sums it up nicely.

[FloraDoraDolly]

Didn't read it but the reason that abortion is morally okay in my book isn't because the fetus deserves no moral rights as a person; it’s because the fetus' moral rights as a person are superseded by the pregnant woman's right to bodily autonomy. Once the conflict between potential life and bodily autonomy no longer exists (ie- once the baby is born), the woman has no more ability to impede the child's rights than she does anyone else's.

And once the baby is out of the mother's body, she isn't obligated to keep it.

[Feberin]

That sums it up nicely.

Me too! Especially the part that talks about post-birth abortions on healthy babies because adoption might cause the mother too much grief. She had a chance to have an abortion and chose not to have one. Now her choices are to keep the baby or put it up for adoption. Killing it should not be on the table.

[eohiken]

Agreed that this is far more a issue about euthanaisa. That was the first thought I had when I saw a video of a baby with harlequin ichthyosis, put that poor creature down.

[Burris]

One prong of the argument for killing an infant with a disability, after birth, concerns the child's projected potential for contributing to society.

There is absolutely no real way to gauge that potential, however: Here is the "Chrystal Ball" objection and I think it's entirely valid.

My husband and I are visibly and congenitally disabled. We both grew into taxpayers and law-abiding citizens.

Some of the people of an age with us - perhaps even a few who shared the nurseries at the respective hospitals where we were born - cannot make the same claims: They may be in conflict with the law. They may have had hidden disabilities that made school and work a whole lot harder. They may simply be lazy. There's no way to tell.

A utilitarian might argue that all things being equal, our lives would have been easier without a disability rather than with one - and I agree. But that is purely hypothetical: There is no such thing as a situation where "all things are equal" - not even for identical twins raised in the same home.

Unless scientists develop gene therapy that can cure disability in utero, or earlier, then there can never be any such thing as a viable non-disabled version – again, all other things being equal - of a disabled individual. (If you kill a disabled infant, you have killed an individual. There will be no others precisely like that person, with or without a disability.)

It's mere hypothesis - just a tad better than useless guess work - to suggest a non-disabled mini-Burris would have been better off in life than a disabled one; and furthermore, that a non-disabled child born to "replace" mini-Burris after she's killed off would fare any better in terms of adding value to society.

In addition, once the baby leaves the womb, it is an individual with all the rights of an individual - including the right to protection from attempted homicide (no matter how well-meaning the potential killer is). The child does not belong so completely to the parent that a parent can kill it or sign off on homicide.

[Austin]

An abortion cannot take place after the birth of an infant, in any circumstance. That's not abortion; that's homicide or euthanasia or something else, but it cannot be abortion. This is just fringe Singer crap and anti-choicers have long tried to lump pro-choice people with extreme fringers like Singer, but that's not a mainstream pro-choice view at all. The bright line is pretty clear to most pro-choicers. While we may engage in internecine bickering regarding what stage of development should be the limit, most of us agree that birth is pretty much the end point of that discussion.

[emmiedahl]

But if the fetus did have a moral right to life, abortion would be unjustifiable even for the sake of protecting a woman's privacy and sovereignty. I do not agree with Valsa that the latter concern would outweigh the former; that seems to me absurd. Protection of one's own privacy never takes legal or moral precedence to protection of another's life.

This is all hypothetical, of course; please no one accuse me of making a pro-life argument. I'm simply trying to point out why I think personhood is indeed an issue.

No.

To be clear, I believe a fetus is alive and that it is a human. That is absolutely clear to me.

If a stranger needs 24/7 perpetual blood transfusions, are you, chiccy, required to be hooked to them and give up nine months of your life to be a perpetual blood donor, not to mention the ill effects of sharing your blood? Even if that person has a "moral right to life", they do not have a moral right to your body. No one, not a fetus nor an adult, has a moral right to your body. It is your body, your choice. It would be very benevolent of you to sacrifice in this manner, but it is not required. And the government needs to realize that.

[chiccy]

No.

To be clear, I believe a fetus is alive and that it is a human. That is absolutely clear to me.

If a stranger needs 24/7 perpetual blood transfusions, are you, chiccy, required to be hooked to them and give up nine months of your life to be a perpetual blood donor, not to mention the ill effects of sharing your blood? Even if that person has a "moral right to life", they do not have a moral right to your body. No one, not a fetus nor an adult, has a moral right to your body. It is your body, your choice. It would be very benevolent of you to sacrifice in this manner, but it is not required. And the government needs to realize that.

I'm convinced.

[quiningseven]

The argument from bodily autonomy is a compelling one- but doesn't get at the whole story. If the only issue is that the fetus is dependent upon the mother's body for survival- well than just remove the fetus, don't kill it. Any abortion after the 22nd week would no longer be necessary. For that matter, technology is advancing so rapidly one could imagine a future in which fetuses can be sustained from a very very early point- let's say 8 weeks for the sake of argument. I would argue, and I'm sure most pro-choice folks would agree, that there should still be the option to terminate even if the fetus could live independently of the womb, and even if it's removal is no more invasive than an abortion. A woman should be able to have a say as to whether or not she wants the developing being to continue to, well, develop. If we agree to this, then the same argument applies after birth- if we don't because, then there must be other factors influencing our judgement. For this reason I believe personhood, or rather the potential for personhood, IS important! personally, I feel that drawing the line at the moment of birth is just as crazy as drawing the line at the moment of conception. It makes it a black and white issue- when it is anything but. I believe abortion is an ethical grey area, and I don't think that's a bad thing. The development of a person begins long before sperm meets egg and continues long after birth and the way we address terminating at any point in the process is going to depend on where the fetus lies on a continuum.

[JesusFightClub]

Prob not - it's Peter Singer's old department and the fuss is par for the course. They've been positing stuff like this for years. It's nothing particularly new.

This. Rags like the Daily Fail get very worked up over papers like this, but Dr Minerva is from Singer's department at the University of Melbourne and it's nothing new or exciting for anyone else. Also, those "news sources" never get that it's a paper not a policy...it isn't being forced on anyone, it's a subject for debate and working out the ethics of the question.

For my sins, I read the Daily Mail comments on this. They were even more stupid than usual, which takes some doing. A lot of people seemed to think the argument was "kill all disabled babies as they are worthless" (no) or "kill anyone without a defined goal in life" (no, which AD should be pleased about) or "kill all ickle, tiny, precious babies 4 teh lulz" (thrice no).

I also don't get how this is supposed to be an indictment of the pro choice movement. As shown on this board, 99% would not agree with the ideas set out. I disagree with their not agreeing (if that makes sense) but Singer and Minerva's view is obviously not a mainstream position.

JFC (extreme fringe type on this question)

[MrsKay]

That's crazy - it's murder, not abortion. Who gets to decide what constitutes an "unbearable burden", anyway? Lack of brain function? "Wrong" gender? This is just too screwed up for me to be okay with.

[JesusFightClub]

It would depend on your stance on abortion in the first place, which is what Dr Minerva's question teases out. Does it actually become murder because a baby has been pushed out of a woman's vagina, or is the issue more complex?

[Tator Tot Tubby]

I'm tentatively for euthanasia in some cases of severely, severely disabled babies.

There was an interesting story one of my nursing instructors talked with the class about. Years and years ago, when she worked in Labor & Delivery, there was a little boy who was born severely disabled. He was basically missing a brain (the only thing he had was enough of a brainstem to keep him breathing on his own) His parents declined life support measures (he would have been a vegetable all his life), so the nurses basically stuck him in a back room to die for lack of sustenance. I think she said it took him something like three days to die (and he did cry the entire time) I can't help but think it would have been more humane to outright kill him than let him die slowly. Of course, these questions are related far more closely to euthanasia than abortion.

The thing that disturbs me most about the story you shared is that the baby was alone in death. Even if his parents felt it was better for him to be without life support, why did they deny him the comfort of family? The poor thing was put in a back room and crying by himself as he suffered a long death. I just can't believe that parents would simply abandon their child like that. And I don't understand how that is legal.... The poor little thing

[valsa]

The thing that disturbs me most about the story you shared is that the baby was alone in death. Even if his parents felt it was better for him to be without life support, why did they deny him the comfort of family? The poor thing was put in a back room and crying by himself as he suffered a long death. I just can't believe that parents would simply abandon their child like that. And I don't understand how that is legal.... The poor little thing

I actually don't blame the parents, though I agree with you that the little boy having to die alone is tragic. I'm assuming this happened decades ago, probably before the disability could have been detected in utero. So the parents were probably expecting a healthy baby and were suddenly confronted with a child that would either be a vegetable for life or dead soon. They were shocked and grieving and likely couldn't stand to be there as their child died (could you watch your child as they died over a long, painful, three day period because no one was feeding him? I honestly don't know if I'd be able to stand it) It's also possible that they were told to just leave and forget about it, the same way parents of babies with things like Down Syndrome were told to basically put their kid in an institution and get on with their life.

[quinoa mama]

Could a baby without a brain have the ability to cry or eat?