Two medical ethicists in Oz have ruffled a few feathers amongst the morally indignant. We’ll leave aside that their paper addresses a very difficult issue that could help establish some very important benchmarks for medicine. And instead we’ll look at the objections to the paper.
Quite a few of the objections come from the religiously inclined segment of society, who rather oddly advocate the killing of these philosophers for just discussing the topic. Some directly, some less so.
Proponents of free speech suddenly aren’t as enthusiastic about it anymore. It appears that some subjects are now taboo and cannot even be discussed. (What do I mean “anymore,” that’s always been the case, dangerous ideas have always given the church the willies.) Pro-lifers justifying killing in the name of life isn’t exactly anything new and it’s funny how the veneration for the sanctity of life peaks at babies and collections of cells, but seems to dissipate as that infant develops fully into a person. The useful application of the term “innocent” helps them ignore their inconsistency over holding sacred all life.
Most of the objectors have a serious issue with the idea that life can held up to a cost benefit analysis, and to be honest at first reading I was very uneasy with that too. It appears that the use of economic grounds as a reason for killing a newborn is a real deal breaker for the pro-life crowd. Being a burden on society or your family should not be any reason to terminate your life apparently. But don’t we already allow folk to die for precisely those reasons?
- How many children die worldwide because they lack clean water?
- How many children die worldwide because their countries cannot afford medication because they are paying off huge debts to the West?
- How many children are born with AIDS because of the morality of the catholic church with regard to contraception.
- How many people die because of austerity imposed upon them by the global forces of capitalism and imported religious beliefs?
Let’s face it our actions, both direct and indirect, kill a huge number of children daily on a massive scale. That’s before we even touch on numbers of adults we dispose of in our quest for the latest fashion items and the next reservoir of oil. And don’t get me started on the number of “the lazy” that are allowed to expire for the sake of a public health policy in some of our wealthiest societies. Life has a price and for some folk some one else’s life is cheaper than a meal, some running shoes or even red prada slippers and a gold plate to eat off.
Our society and all societies over the ages have always placed a value on human life, and the lives of children and women in particular; so what is the big deal with some rather honest folk actually coming out and being open about discussing it. After all, that’s all they were doing isn’t it – Offering up a view in what is an ongoing discussion about a topic that is of interest to society?
I find racists to be a particularly unpleasant bunch. Over the years they’ve killed their fair share of folk for, in my opinion, the most stupid of reasons. (Let’s add the religious to that category too.) But any advocating for the death of all catholics or all neo-nazis and cutting of their right to free expression would be viewed by most people living in the west as a serious over reaction, and quite rightly too.
So my question to all the morally indignant folk out there is, “is a paper by two academics dealing with a theoretical argument really a much greater threat to life than catholicism and neo-nazism?” If not, and I think an honest person would say so, then if the two researchers and their enablers should be targeted “to be executed summarily, either by the state or, failing that, by private actors.” Shouldn’t every neo-nazi or every catholic also be up for the same treatment?
Nope the only thing that bothered me about the paper, apart from the discomfort I feel when people cause me to to really think about uncomfortable topics, was the attempt to soften the act of infanticide with a euphemism.
In spite of the oxymoron in the expression, we propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide’, to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child.
The act of killing an infant is not abortion it is infanticide. An abortion is carried out on a foetus and once that foetus has been born it is an infant, as the law clearly states and the reality of its location confirms. If you choose to kill this infant, then that act already has a name no matter what reasons you use to justify it. I’m with George Carlin on this, calling a rape victim an unwilling sperm recipient doesn’t alter the fact the person was raped. In this case an infant was killed.
One little point – Linking to my post and using it as an example of “the religiously inclined segment of society” is erroneous, either due to ignorance or deliberate disingenuity. While I’m quite religious, I’m not Christian – Normative value for “religious” in the West – and don’t share their outlooks.
As for the rest – Your sophistry and false equivalencies are par for the course for Liberals. You should really rename your blog, “Bleatings From The Herd.”
Nice straw man you created there. I said religious you can interpret that in whatever way you want, but you cannot then claim that I said what you wanted me to say.
It’s the usual trick of the viciously intolerant to accuse others of sophistry in order to cover for their hypocrisy. So the fact you use the term erroneously doesn’t surprise me one bit.
As for liberal, maybe, Liberal not so much; but when you are an advocate of vigilante justice and ad hoc, extra legal executions I guess everyone wo doesn’t agree looks like a liberal to you.
Most people would have meant Christian by that statement or, at the very least Abrahamic. Almost all would interpret it that way, as you well know. I do not choose to allow you to use me as part of your attacks upon Christianity.
As for hypocrisy – what hypocrisy? I cannot see where I have exhibited any. I, not being Christian, don’t have any pathetic belief in the sanctity in life et al. I firmly believe that some “people” just need to be exterminated for the common good and that most definitely includes those who advocate or support those who advocate the slaughter of the only innocents on the planet, infants and small children.
So even though you saw that I wrote “religion” and made an assumption and then criticised me based on that assumption, it was my fault. And you did it again in your follow up.
Really, how does that in anyway make a salient point.
The reason I chose catholicism was because the two other links advocating the removal of free speech and the extra judicial execution of people who said bad things, were of the kiddy diddling variety. I could have gone with islam, but hey let’s face it accusing them of bad things is no great stretch at the moment. I could even have selected hindus too, given their murders in the name of faith.
As for hypocrisy, even at a trivial level your assumption that I am a Liberal after taking me to task for your assumption that I was assuming you were a xian shows that you don’t want others assuming while you choose to do so yourself.
So you have no “belief in the sanctity in life et al.” Yet you get all worked up when somebody investigates the ethics of infanticide. Clearly you do have some belief in the sanctity of some human life. In fact given the fact you have identified something as being for the “common good” and that for a good to be common it must make more than 50% of us happy, you must also hold the lives of other, non-infants in a high regard too. Otherwise why would the common good bother you?
No. I read your “about” page. You define yourself as liberal in all but the economic sense. How you manage that distinction I unsure of.
I also didn’t assume that you thought I was Christian (xian as you for some probably Godless reason seem to want to type it). I merely didn’t want to allow you to use me in your attacks upon America’s normative form of religion.
As for my beliefs – I believe that one should protect the innocent and that children are the only proven innocents. I have no issues whatsoever with with exterminating people who made “bad” choices.
No I believe I said I was fiscally pretty conservative, again not Conservative. I do not spend what I do not have. Then I said, socially I was more live and let live, that is more of a libertarian position I believe.
You appear to be protesting too much about your lack of xian sympathy; because every time you post it appears you take issue with my denigration of them. Xian is in fact an old christian way of writing their name. Oh and by the way I have no respect for all religions and pretty much view them as different variations on a theme. So I tend to lump you altogether.
As for innocent, if you have no particular respect for the sanctity of life, why should innocence bother you? Or are you now applying conditions to your supposed non-existent “pathetic belief in the sanctity in life et al?”