From The Telegraph: “Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say.” Apparently the Aktion T-4 is alive and well.
The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.
H. L. Mencken
Eugenics, born from the Progressive movement of the 20th Century
WTF???!!!???
Well, why not, it’s the next logical step from “it’s not human, it’s just a fetus”, isn’t it? Makes you wonder, at what point do they consider a baby to be human?
From a purely cold-blooded legal aspect, I would say that the moment a child is born, it is a citizen and therefore has both basic human rights and the rights of its nation. This includes the right not to be murdered and to have its assailants punished by legal means.
The unfortunate side-effect of this is effectively saying “as long as it’s still in the womb, it has no rights,” because since it hasn’t been born, it’s not a citizen and therefore not a person…
I don’t believe this, of course, but from a legal standpoint it makes sense to me.
Bull
“All persons BORN or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
What utter tripe on their part.
What they seem to be saying is that a child that has been born is still a fetus, just a dried out fetus. Hey…what’s a few hours before or after birth between friends? They didn’t get into how old a child must be before the parents are not allowed to kill them, but Pete Singer, professor of ethics at Princeton, says parents should be able to kill their little bundle of not-quite-joyful enough up to the age of 2 years old. Eyes not blue enough for you? Too cranky? Too demanding of your precious Facebook time? No problem. Off the little sucker.
I say we ought to be able to kill bioethicists once they get their Ph.D. but before they can issue stupid edicts like this.
So, you want to drag the gunnies into your anti-abortion fight. WHY? NO! It is NOT the same thing. Tell me, holy warrior, HOW will you ENFORCE an anti-abortion law? Are you a “small government conservative except when the holy unborn” are concerned? Tell me, “small government” conservative, HOW are you going to enforce your MANDATE to “protect” the unborn? Do you put a government agent in the office of every doctor in Amerika to oversee medical procedures? Or do you go the Chinese route and make every woman capable of conception pee in a jar before a bureaucrat to PROVE she isn’t “with child” every month? How about a woman that has a miscarriage? Is she a MURDERER? Would you mandate funerals for stillbirths? LEAVE IT ALONE! You need to biblethump your way to more money, do it another way.
I think you’re missing the point. Big time.
ayup. this post just went right over his head…
You enforce an anti abortion law the same way you do other laws. Protecting the unborn from being carved up is hardly indicative of any small government hypocrisy. Small government does not equal no laws. And stop making this a religious issue; using your logic (or lack thereof), we should abolish murder and thievery laws as well since they are mentioned in the ten commandments.
They can go have a colonoscopy with a cactus for all I care.
The concept just seems so unnatural to us because if we had felt otherwise, the human race would never have succeeded. Now, infanticide would not have much of a practical effect on population levels, which is why some people are experimenting with the idea. I think it is an incredibly grey area that should be debated. On one hand, infanticide conflicts with my moral belief that causing unnecessary pain to sentient beings is cruel. On the other hand, certain genetic conditions can bring more pain than death would. Example:
WARNING: FOLLOWING THIS LINK WILL RUIN YOUR WEEK
http://dermatlas.med.jhmi.edu/derm/indexDisplay.cfm?ImageID=1591053008
Human life is remarkable, but then it isn’t at the same time. Our bodies are massive biological machines that are prone to defects. If the machine is broken beyond repair (and I mean REALLY broken), then why try to salvage it?
With all that said, its probably best to take Fiftycal’s advice and keep this a gun blog.
Let me see if I got this right: Both AF and Fiftycal are telling me what should and shouldn’t I write in my blog?
Gentlemen, you are cordially invited to go…… well, you get my meaning.
I hope no one can say with any seriousness “Boy, we never saw this one coming!”
As we are so fond of saying in the gun world, look at the slippery slope Roe v Wade has become since someone somewhere found the hidden abortion amendment in the Constitution! Next thing we know this will be a “womens health issue.”
And what’s the deal with the blog Nazis criticizing you for the content on your page?
And what’s the deal with the blog Nazis criticizing you for the content on your page?
Strangely, it is a growing pattern. I all but had to kick some self-righteous narcissist off my site for dictating to me what I will and will not be writing about in the future. Oddly, he was not too happy with my response to him.
I am not sure if it is an outgrowth of the entitlement mentality taking over our society, or just the eternal problem of giving something to people for free, but it definitely needs to stop.
This is by no means a new argument, I’ve read a couple of radical feminist articles and many others about this long before this particular article was published. The concept that even a child (up to X number of years old) is not a person is a well established argument within bioethics.
When reading these articles you need to forget what you think ethics and morals mean. Philosophically speaking they are both technical terms and the various meanings people attribute to those words generally are not the same as the varying meanings different disciplines within the filed at large give to them (the field at large here is bioethics) . That’s right, there isn’t even going to be agreement in the field as a whole as to what the definition of a foundational concept is! Get used to it though, every technical field and liberal art faces similar difficulties. Just for reference, ethically speaking, these people are probably taking a more utilitarian approach, which is to maximize happiness/well being; that goal can create some very drastic sounding stuff like this.
You also need to consider the source, all of the people writing this article are either: A) Academics, B) Philosophers and/or Bioethicists, C) Both. Unfortunately being in academia, in a discipline that is heavily divided (i.e. contention in the meaning of a term let alone the issues) means a heavily divided approach to a question. Unfortunately also being trapped in academia in a self serving profession (philosophy) means producing work that has basically no following/context/impact outside of academia and said area of study (philosophy in this case, bioethics specifically). That can lead to slightly loosing touch with reality and life outside of academia; if you are producing for academia then you are not tailoring your work for the lay man. My guess is that by the numbers, this makes sense according to whatever discipline they are approaching from but, that doesn’t mean that all within that field of study agree and I would find it extremely unlikely if there was not serious contention.
Also consider this article was news worthy simply because of how shocking it is. The 20 million other papers refuting this point obviously would get no attention because they are not inflammatory/disturbing/abnormal. Academically it is a perfectly legitimate article but, for the mainstream that is approaching this with much different scruples, it is obviously no where near legitimate. All that the typical lay person will get from this is OMG MURDERRRR REDRUM!!!11!!!!11!
Now you may be saying “Obviously this guy Matt is talking out of his ass.” Well that is entirely true and thus, I have a confession to make. I myself have a degree in Philosophy. That being said, I have bit of background with this stuff and I am also doomed to be forever poor in an industry that almost only serves itself :’-(. But, I write this comment in the hope that you may understand the field slightly and consider the source. Also understand I use lay person to mean one outside of the profession, it is in no means intended to be insulting.