The article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics called “After Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?”–which I addressed here a few days ago–is getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere. So, I decided that I would move past the argument over infanticide, and get into the larger agenda that the article represents. After discussing the details of the article, I get into the bigger picture. From my article at the Daily Caller, “Latest Infanticide Push About More Than Killing Babies:”
“After-Birth Abortion” is merely the latest example of bioethical argument wielded as the sharp point of the spear in an all-out philosophical war waged among the intelligentsia against Judeo/Christian morality based in human exceptionalism and adherence to universal human rights. In place of intrinsic human dignity as the foundation for our culture and laws, advocates of the new bioethical order want moral value to be measured individual-by-individual — whether animal or human — and moment-by-moment. Under this view, we each must earn full moral status by currently possessing capacities sufficient to be deemed a “person.”
The authors claim that one is not a person unless one can value their own lives and it means no one is ever permanently invested with human rights:
In other words, if you can’t value your own life, your life has less value. In this view — which is rife within international and American bioethics — the unborn, infants (at least through the first few weeks) and those who have lost relevant capacities because of, for example, late-stage Alzheimer’s or severe brain damage are not persons because they have either not yet attained or have lost the capacities of personhood. Some would even deprive such so-called human non-persons of the right to life. This means that you can be a person today but not tomorrow, and not be a person today and be killed before you become one tomorrow.
I point out that some bioethicists believe that some animals are persons and some humans aren’t, and link a Psychology Today interview with Peter Singer in which he asserts that PVS patients should be used in medical experiments in place of chimps and animals with higher cognition. And I point out that these discussions in bioethics have a purpose:
Some might wave the threat away by claiming that personhood theory is merely the secular equivalent of debating how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. But that is to whistle past the graveyard. Bioethics isn’t about abstract argument. It uses discourse to transform philosophical views into societal action. And while personhood theory is certainly not the unanimous view, I think it is fair to say that it represents the consensus in the field — at least among the majority of bioethicists who don’t have a modifier such as “conservative” or “Christian” in front of their title.
Now consider just one practical example of how personhood theory could soon deleteriously impact the well-being of you and your family. Obamacare has centralized control of health care into the federal bureaucracy, including by establishing a plethora of cost/benefit boards that will start operating within the next several years. Who do you think will be tapped to fill many of these powerful government positions that could ultimately decide what medical procedures will and won’t be covered by insurance — perhaps even which patients will and won’t receive them? Bingo! “Experts” trained in bioethics.
And therein lies a real danger:
Now consider what could happen if many or most of these board members adhere to the noxious view that “human non-persons” do not have a right to life: To say the least, the potential for “death panels” comes vividly into focus.
That ain’t all, of course. Personhood theory is a corrosive threat to universal human rights across a broad spectrum. But more on that as we roll along.
February 29th, 2012 | 6:34 pm
Lloyd DeMause in his essay “The Evolution of Childhood” (pp. 25-26) reports:
“Generally, infanticide in antiquity was not given importance, although citations of references of ancient writers say it was a daily fact of life accepted. Children were thrown into rivers, mountains thrown into fertilizer, put on hips to death from starvation and exposure in the mountains and sidewalks as “prey for birds, food for wild beasts from collecting.”
handmaid leah Reply:
March 1st, 2012 at 11:47 am
@Alfonso, Dear Alphonso, just because it was an act performed in antiquity doesn’t make it any more right. Christianity was THE force that changed this perspective.
It just shows how far we have fallen in an already fallen world.
February 29th, 2012 | 6:58 pm
The dream of Peter Singer and Julian Savulescu ;
A pro-life blogger (José Alfredo Marcos Elia) has this description of the culture of death, “Surely, there can be no better example of total disregard of human life to kill people for fun.
The practice was extremely popular, and the Emperor Augustus in his Acts, said that during his reign (29AE to 14EC) held games where 10,000 people were fighting and 3,500 beasts were killed. While savage fights between gladiators – who were usually slaves trained for this purpose – were the special event, to keep the news of death, Nero and Domitian ordered including women, children, blind and dwarves to fight each other. All value as long as the crowds were happy.
On a typical day, when the Coliseum was full, the place was crowded with men, women and children – yes, the Romans thought that there was nothing wrong with exposing children to such grotesque events. Admission was free, and a cushion for your seat, meat and wine were also provided free. The act which began in the morning was an exhibition of wild animals. The Roman empire went about trying to find exotic and wild beasts to surprise the masses. Then he lowered the floor to present fighting between them. The Romans cheered as he was destroying the tigers lions or tigers were going against bears, leopards against wolves. It is clear that the Romans had never heard of the rights of Animals.
Then came the bullfights, but these opportunities bullfighters, being slaves or convicts, they had a chance to practice beforehand, so the bull was fighting to the death usually. The audience screamed. That’s what I came to see.
You’d think that was enough for everyone. But that was just the warming event. Then came the feed the animals – being the main course, people. Keep in mind that Rome was a society very oriented towards law and order and everything was done legally – you could not just take someone to the lions, only people convicted of capital offenses. But if victims did not have enough for daily fun, Romans conventionally condemned to death even minor criminals and so made up for what was missing. During intermissions, giant fountains poured perfume in the air to reduce the smell of death. The entertainment never stopped. Among the spectacular killings, executions were carried out either continuous burning, tearing the skin of people living or slaughtered.
The main event was saved for the evening, and was what people really been waiting for – the battle of the year gladiadores.En 107EC during a four-month celebration of his conquest of Dacia, Trajan – who perhaps was even the record of Augustus – held a tournament in which 10,000 gladiators and 3,000 animals fought. This meant that whoever was sitting watching the show at least 5,000 people would die. A Trajan was so fond of this kind of slaughter – and had a large pool of Dacian prisoners of war for that purpose – apparently sent 23,000 people to his death between 106 and 118EC.
It was all horrible and evil, and if you think it could get worse, consider that Comodo (emperor from 180 to 193EC) organized fights with disabled people and killed all himself.”
February 29th, 2012 | 7:24 pm
The most paradoxical of the position in favor of infanticide of the Journal of Medical Ethics is not a new or progressive position, in contrast is very old:
According to the doctor and expert in the history of medicine Hugo Armando Sotomayor “In Rome infanticide was not declared punishable by death until the year 374 when Christianity became the state religion. Following this was common practice of infanticide ‘accidental’ child suffocated under the weight of adults. from the early Middle Ages laws and penitential books bear witness to the attempts to prevent the abandonment of children and throwing them choking on them in bed , whether intentionally or not, in the ninth century is issued the first specific prohibition of the custom of the children sleep in parents bed. Use of this furniture was a matter of life or death, as evidenced by numerous warnings ecclesiastical authorities, whose object was not to lie to children in the parents’ bed to avoid risk of suffocation under the weight of adults. in a series of such calls that extend throughout the thirteenth century, several bishops urged that children be kept in the crib at least until the age of three years.
As the ceremony of baptism reception also represented the child in the Christian community, this precept, and the insistence of public baptism in a church may also purported to end the practices designed to ensure that a child could not survive. “
February 29th, 2012 | 7:50 pm
The fragment on the amphitheatres and gladiators site belongs to an exceptional 8.2. Where do the values and moral principles of the modern world?
http://01paganismo.blogspot.com/2009/05/82-de-donde-provienen-los-valores-y.html, written by José Alfredo Marcos Elia. Please if you are worried about the culture of death and I advise you read Spanish you know to navigate it.
March 1st, 2012 | 12:34 pm
[...] Ethical Infanticide: Professor Tim Muldoon Wesley J. Smith Jonah [...]
March 1st, 2012 | 4:48 pm
If we’re going to define which people are not really people – and are therefore not entitled to any rights, Constitutional or otherwise – then the decision for who is and who is not a person is going to be arbitrary. Period.
You can say “if you are incapable of valuing your own life”.
Or you can say “if you are a person who is not productive enough to justify the bread you eat.”
Or you can say, “if you are a person who is substandard in XYZ way and therefore not an asset to the gene pool.”
One arbitrary reason is pretty much as good as any other.
daniel Reply:
March 3rd, 2012 at 9:26 am
@Blake, Well said.
I would add that either we have rights, given to us by God, or we have no rights at all. There is no morality or ethics apart from God; there’s only the will of the majority imposed on the minority.
March 1st, 2012 | 6:20 pm
Personhood theory, in the legal sense, isn’t a problem so long as personhood is granted to all human beings.
In the United States, the term “person” when applied to a human being, refers to a set of characteristics that grant fundamental rights to individuals, including the right to life. In other words, persons are protected by a series of God-given and Constitutionally ensured rights. Of course, all living human beings are persons. Humans are valuable because of what they are, not because of some arbitrary attribute that comes in varying degrees (such as self-awareness or skin color) which may be gained or lost during their lifetimes. Unless this fact is accepted, it is impossible to say why objective human rights apply to anyone and impossible to claim that “all men are created equal.”
We should press for legal recognition of all human beings as persons, including the unborn.
March 2nd, 2012 | 12:15 pm
[...] Wesley Smith’s compelling response to this honest if not horrific ethics [...]
March 4th, 2012 | 11:44 am
So, to be clear, the professional bioethicists argue in this fashion:
1. No human being has rights.
2. However, if you want to have rights, then you also have them.
3. Therefore, some human beings have rights.
This is so utter nonsense that I cannot anymore understand why this can be taken seriously.
Why do people descend to this kind of madness, when they want to have abortions and then follow the logic?
March 10th, 2012 | 4:26 pm
LIFE DOES NOT BEGING AT CONCEPTION,
THAT IS WHEN LIFE BRANCHES OUT.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 10th, 2012 at 6:18 pm
Don’t shout.
March 12th, 2012 | 2:33 pm
On October 5, 2001, my husband and I lost the youngest of our four children and only son to brain death after a car accident. He was 18; his name was Tom, and we consented to donate his organs and tissues not understanding that he was declared dead based on the “personhood theory.” We have come to think of it since then as: a car accident robbed our son of his life and then the medical profession (among others) robbed him of his death by turning death into something that death was never meant to be.
I think medical technology should only be used to enhance what’s natural, not to exchange the natural for the unnatural–and lest some people need be reminded, nobody ever naturally dies from just the neck up. Put another way, I would not describe as “natural” any death that can literally only occur in the high-tech environment of a hospital intensive care unit.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact