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Outrageous: ethicists argue for acceptance of “after-birth abortions”

According to two Australian ethicists, the baby in that photo should be killed if the parents so wish it, in what they call “after-birth abortion”. It’s not infanticide or murder to them. No, it’s just another form of abortion, because newborns aren’t really people yet. And while it sounds crazy and horrific, this unfortunately isn’t something I’m making up.

Alberto Giubilini with Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne write that in “circumstances occur[ing] after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.”

The two are quick to note that they prefer the term “after-birth abortion“ as opposed to ”infanticide.” Why? Because it “[emphasizes] 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 authors also do not agree with the term euthanasia for this practice as the best interest of the person who would be killed is not necessarily the primary reason his or her life is being terminated. In other words, it may be in the parents’ best interest to terminate the life, not the newborns.

The circumstances, the authors state, where after-birth abortion should be considered acceptable include instances where the newborn would be putting the well-being of the family at risk, even if it had the potential for an “acceptable” life. The authors cite Downs Syndrome as an example, stating that while the quality of life of individuals with Downs is often reported as happy, “such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”

This means a newborn whose family (or society) that could be socially, economically or psychologically burdened or damaged by the newborn should have the ability to seek out an after-birth abortion. They state that after-birth abortions are not preferable over early-term abortions of fetuses but should circumstances change with the family or the fetus in the womb, then they advocate that this option should be made available.

As if that wasn’t sickening enough, there’s also this little gem:

Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.

Let that sink in for a few minutes.

So if a baby is born with Down Syndrome, or another disability, then according to these two, a parent should be able to just kill it. Or let’s say that the mother decides that being a parent is just too stressful for her. She should be able to kill her baby then, too. Baby costs too much money? Yep, just kill it. All of these things are perfectly acceptable, because newborns aren’t real people yet. And as for adoption in any of these circumstances? Well, that could cause the mother emotional distress, so the answer would be… kill the baby! The fact that they see adoption as something that would cause a mother emotional distress but not the murder of their own child just shows how sick these two people are.

The sad thing is, that this point of view is inevitable once you start allowing people to define just what a human being actually is. If we don’t value all life, then does it really make a difference when we kill a baby? At this point, what difference does it make if the baby is inside the mother’s womb or outside of it?

And while it sounds incredible that anything like this would ever be allowed outside of speculation in a bioethics journal, keep in mind the horrors of partial birth abortion. Keep in mind that our own president voted in favor of infanticide. And the arguments that these ethicists are making are the exact same arguments that pro-abortion advocates make for abortion every day.

Pro-aborts would surely scoff at this as fear-mongering, but I’d be curious to know what their answer is to why it is acceptable to kill a baby one day before they are born, and unacceptable to kill them the next day after they’ve been born. When we fail to stand for life, this is the inevitable conclusion. First it’s just the unborn babies that it’s OK to kill. Then it’s the newborns, and then the “undesirables”. If pro-choice is all about the choice of the mother, with no protection given to the child whatsoever, then why should it really make a difference when she kills her child?

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  • Elise77

    Remember that silly talk of the “slippery slope” created by Roe v Wade? That one at which people just rolled their eyes and dismissed as hyperbolic?

    Oh LOOK, here it is. WHOOPS, there we go….

  • Leaeblack

    The US has become a country where life has lost it’s meaning to all citizens and will be defined and legislated by the government, Hello, Hitler, is that you?

  • Amy

    One thing that seems to be overlooked here is that “ethicist” is a self-proclaimed title and “ethicists” have been saying terrible things for hundreds of years. This article makes it sound like this is a mainstream thought which I am certain the vast majority of people would deny. Remember also that “ethicists” have been discussing the ethics murder  including branding it as acceptable in certain situations where it helps those in power (In this case, the parents). This isn’t news, it’s an age-old debate that’s coming to the surface yet again. Obviously it’s wrong–very, very wrong. I am a mother and I am pro-life. However, I will also concede that the abortion argument is very touchy. I wholeheartedly agree that abortion is heinous. I just think there should be some fact checking and some rational thinking before engaging in these sorts of conversations. The point in this article is moot and only helps to inflame the left into thinking that pro-life individuals are blowing things out of proportion.

    • Four_canarios

      I agree Amy.  However; we cannot deny the fact that the same arguments are being used by pro-choicers in America, and if we stay silent because the subject of abortion is a touchy one, soon we will see these practices in America on a regular basis.

  • Guest

    If this sort of thing keeps up in the U.S. and other countries, next it will be toddlers, then teenagers, then adults, all because they are “inconvenient” for other people.  Abortion = legalized murder.  Murder = murder, killing without justifiable cause.  And being inconvenienced isn’t justifiable :/

    • protectlittleones

      THANK YOU! now if only people could pull their heads out of their a**es and realize abortion is murder and not some sort of “fix-it trend” life is good, murder is bad…even a three year old could get that straight and that’s just sad our process of human evolution is going backwards

      • courtney m moore

        I like you

  • Dianelilli1

    Sickos…..why are we even listening to them or printing their thoughts… Absurd….don’t even given the time of day.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002100337655 Abigeal Rose Angelika LaGrange

      if we do not give it the time of day it will be legal before we realize it. 

  • http://profiles.google.com/erinrlewis Erin Lewis

    Unfortunately, the “pro-choice” side generally agrees that babies in utero are actually alive and are human, yet still have no human rights.  They justify abortion by saying that either 1. the baby is irrational/immature/incapable of thinking/etc and therefore should be able to be killed (which opens up the door to doing the same with anyone labeled as disabled or feeble-minded), or 2. they think it is okay because the mother is “forced” to use her body as “life support” and that since the baby can’t live without her, it’s okay to kill it.  The second argument is more dangerous, I think, because there is nothing else to compare it to – yes, it is all on the mother.  If science one day creates an artificial womb into which a new life can be placed and grow, I wonder then if they would still try this argument?  They think that pregnancy that is undesired infringes on a woman’s bodily autonomy… seriously.  I can understand where they are getting these arguments, but they are completely and totally flawed.  They are worshiping human thinking/”reasoning” over biology, natural law, and God.  Even if you take God out of the argument (if they don’t beleive in any religion then you can’t argue that angle w/ them), you can still argue that they are going against biology.  Isn’t there some quote that says something along the lines of “it’s not nice to try to trick mother nature” or something like that?  That is what I wish the pro-abortion side would understand.  We have to try to meet them where they’re at and debunk their arguments from there.

    • Legomyeggo

      The premise that the baby has no right to use the mother’s body, even if doing so is necessary for him/her to continue living is just flawed. Imagine a scenario in which you are standing on a hotel balcony, and a toddler falls off the balcony above, and latches onto your hand by a shear miracle. By the logic above, you would be justified in simply letting go, since the toddler’s continued existence requires using your arm. But just imagine how egregious it would be to let go and say, “sorry, you don’t have a right to use my body.” The right to life, it appears, requires something of someone else: that s/he restrain him/herself from acting in such a way as to kill you.

      • Back-to-the-dark-ages

        This is just daft – it’s nothing like that. If a baby is no longer physiologically connected then it can be removed without killing it, therefore killing it is morally wrong.

        Your argument is just odd. Saving a baby falling over the balcony does not damage the mother, either spiritually, mentally or physically. If a pregnant woman is unfit to be a mother for any reason, then carrying a child to term will do all three. In which case, both of them will suffer.

    • Back-to-the-dark-ages

      Yes, you’re absolutely right that it’s not nice to trick Mother Nature. We should immediately renounce everything that goes against Mother Nature, including cars, houses and medicines and go back to living in trees. Or are you saying there are ‘grades’ of interfering that are ok? According to your own argument,babies are either people or they’re not – or are there shades of grey there too?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-P-Francis/1003693413 Robert P Francis

      They enjoyed and benefited from the fact their mothers were “inconvenienced” and brought them to term but somehow their offspring aren’t entitled to their lives? Those babies are us, the very essence of who we are and where we come from is being turned into a mockery, where is the sanctity of life, where is protection for the unborn. The human being forms a child inside the mother because that is supposed to be the safest place possible for development, otherwise we’d just lay eggs. This marvelous creation, this complex machinery, this miracle deserves protection. Now it is human kinds own callousness destroying human life. How sick our world has become.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002100337655 Abigeal Rose Angelika LaGrange

    To take in all the evil and to not count the people who make life bearable, would make any man insane. 
    how are we to go on and how are people to make this ‘justified’ when you are not killing a ‘blob of cells’ as they say any more? and if so are we all blobs of cells?
    where does it end? 
    when we started……….most people knew we were never to end.
    but i will admit this day, i thought would never come.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ruth-Thompson/100000627997265 Ruth Thompson

    So now we start killing the child after birth because of inconvenience? What utter HORROR. What INSANITY! Like hitler they decide who lives & who dies. But in the end they will LOSE THEIR ETERNAL SOUL, an eternity in Hell with no exit for these murderers of children. Who will be next on their list of inconvenient people? The sick? the disabled? The poor? The helpless? Ethnic Groups? The mentally ill? Hitler killed them all and now we see this is starting again.

  • Gia

    that’s just wrong once the child has a heart beat it should be considered murder if you weren’t ready for the responsibility of having a child you should have, as my grandma puts it “kept it in your pants”

    • Kristiburtonbrown

      While I believe abortion is the killing of a unique human being from conception – not just a heartbeat – it’s worth noting that the heart starts to beat at 21 days after conception. This is quite a bit of time before women even know they’re pregnant. If we did have the “heartbeat standard,” no abortion could be performed legally, which would be awesome (unless you want to count the Morning After Pill…).

      • http://twitter.com/pfcpremosgirl Aundria Premo

        The “morning after pill” prevents conception, it doesn’t abort an already established pregnancy, no matter how early in the pregnancy it is taken. Plan B saves lives. And prevents abortion.

        • Sara

          My dear– morning after pill – is taken after the oops I forgot to take contraception – which means there is already a conception. It prevents implantation not conception. So it is an abortifacient. Plan B doesn’t save lives it induces abortion.

          • Esperken

            But by the same token, an IUD also doesn’t prevent conception, just implantation which is why I refused it as a birth control method. You are systematically causing yourself to abort each month.

        • jaz

          “It doesn’t abort an already established PREGNANCY, no matter how early in the PREGNANCY it is taken”.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kevin-Park/100001847604283 Kevin Park

    Wow. All I can say is… wow.

  • InGodWeTrust

    What’s outrageous is that we’ve been ‘talking’ about this for OVER 40FREAKIN’YEARS! The time has come to ABOLISH abortion! WOMEN DESERVE BETTER than the killing of their unborn children. BREAK THE CHAINS of abortion—NOW!!! VOTE OUT obama!

  • http://www.facebook.com/lydia.mitchell.372 Lydia Mitchell

    And what about the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the right to LIFE, I’m starting to get a headache from all the stupidity in the world today, I’m only 16 and I feel I’ve seen enough stupidity to last a lifetime. So when exactly do babies get to be considered human? And who gets to decide that? GOD THAT’S WHO!! Not these doctors or whatever who think they know it all.

  • Crystal P.

    pro lifers keep in mind one point a pro-choicer pointed out to me- abortion is not called “murder” because abortion is legal, and the definition of murder is “ILLEGAL killing”.
    And yes, the propagation of after birth “abortion” is disgusting and I will be telling anyone who’s open to it how they are doing a disgusting and immoral thing. We’re losing sight of the line between what’s morally right and morally wrong because of all the other immorality that is just rampant today.

    • Han

      Murder existed before the law dipshit, murder is killing someone, do not allow societies terms to define your beliefs. Women feel pressured to live and be mothers by societies standards and they forget their standards or that they can have their own. I hope girls who read this know that if you have an abortion, it will never go away, you will always feel the pain, and that child will always be gone, you can never undo it. If you keep the child you will never regret it, you will be happy and so will they, give them life, they strive for it, that is all that child wants is a chance to live, give them that, you are the only one who can make that choice.

  • picklespauline1

    Abigeal Rose is right, we have to talk about it; burying our heads in the sand does not make it go away.
    First they came for the communists,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
    Then they came for the socialists,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
    Then they came for the trade unionists,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
    Then they came for me,
    and there was no one left to speak for me.

  • Really??

    Golly..sounds like something that Hitler would have proposed….um…er…he did, didn’t he!

  • protectlittleones

    where is our world coming too if it’s ok to kill babies before and after they’re born?!…I say we should go after adults since they’re an inncovence and apparently it’s ok to murder now…I’m sorry but this is a bunch of bulls**t to legalize murder! I dare anyone to give me ONE good excuse to have an abortion. I dare anyone and I dare anyone to find out where my foot is gonna go afterwards

  • HeatherNH

    Thank you for your passion and your intellect. This is such an important mission. What a scary world we live in!

  • yan

    These philosophers aren’t the first to say this. Peter Singer has been saying it for years; so, one has to wonder why it should suddenly be ‘news’. It is not new; it is not novel. Is the ‘news’ part that some ostensibly smart people have now agreed with a view which was marginal? By publishing this as news, that view has become slightly less marginal. Yes, I suppose that is news of a kind.

    This is the same kind of slow accretion that built up in regard to homosexual behavior until now we are ready to decide whether people can marry someone of the same sex.

    The immoralists are relentless. Look soon for popular media events–tv shows, movies–where a very sympathetic young teen aged mother in dire circumstances makes a ‘tragic’ decision to dump her newborn in the trash….how dare you condemn this cherub….her circumstances were thrust upon her….SHE WAS RAPED…must she SUFFER EVEN MORE at the hands of the law for her actions?…etc etc….

    As for the philosophy of ‘personhood’ behind this ethical conclusion: it claims that giving barely conscious humans a status elevated above, say, long conscious dolphins and chimpanzees, is an incidence of condemnable ‘specieism’. No, I am not making this up.

    Their view of personhood is based on functional qualities, which, in the event, certain animals may at times possess in greater measure than humans.

    It really is a clever thing to say. After all, what makes a man valuable? It’s his spiritual qualities: his intelligence, his ability to act in a virtuous manner, and so on. Well, they argue, some animals are this way too, to an extent, at certain times. Aren’t animals, to that extent, at those times, more PERSONS than a fetus or a new born or an old senile crone? Shouldn’t animals have more rights than such marginal HUMAN persons, who either no longer, or not yet, truly merit the title ‘person’? To hold otherwise would be SPECIEISM.

    What they cannot see anymore, or don’t want to see, is how man, even the smallest man, or the oldest, or even a man no longer alive, bears the image of God, in a way that no other animal does, or ever can, or ever will.

    I don’t think when CS Lewis wrote the Abolition of Man that he imagined that Man would be sacrificed on the altar of Personhood.

  • Back-to-the-dark-ages

    Utterly ridiculous straw man argument, made to provoke shock and horror. Shame on you – if you can’t argue your case rationally without resorting to emotive hyperbole then it doesn’t seem you have much of a case at all.

    The difference – the HUGE difference for those of you who pretend you can’t see it – between a foetus and a baby is that it is no longer part of a woman’s body and whatever happens to that baby no longer physically impinges on the mother. It can be taken away from the mother without killing it, therefore killing the baby is morally indefensible.

    By choosing the foetus’s rights over the mother before birth, you’re denying the woman’s “personhood” and reducing her to a vessel useful only for carrying a fetus without rights to make a decision on what’s best for HER within that nine months.

    And, lastly, no-one WANTS abortions, even pro-choicers. Late term abortions are extremely rare and, without exception, painful and traumatising for everyone involved.

    No one is in favour of a situation where any woman can skip along to the abortion clinic and say “oh, I’m so fed up with being fat, please rip this baby apart limb from limb as I can’t be bothered with the whole child thing.’

    Oh, sorry – slipped into your method of arguing there.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Td-Kelley-Stec/100000294622681 Td Kelley Stec

      Should there be any case where it’s ok to say, “Let’s head to the clinic to (in your words) rip this baby limb from limb.” If a mother aborts, understanding the gravity of the circumstance, is it ok, then? Does her emotional reaction alter the moral acceptability of the act? Is it less reprehensible to rip a baby limb from limb if she feels bad about it?
      The women’s movement accomplished remarkable gains. It is bewildering to me, however, that it does not acknowledge the paradox in its own thinking—for centuries, women were oppressed by men who wielded societal power. Yet, as soon as we, as a collective group, advanced our cause towards equality, one of our first moves was to declare a subjugation of the baby in the womb. We crush our own unborn children because we CAN, re-affirming that, indeed, might makes right. Have we learned nothing from our own tragic history?

      .

    • Guest

      And, just as one child brutally murdered is too many, so one “extremely rare” late term abortion is one too many

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-P-Francis/1003693413 Robert P Francis

      Don’t get pregnant in the first place.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ermaxson Emily Maxson

    Does anyone else remember who, besides Jews, Hitler sent to death camps? That’s what this reminds me of… Those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it…

  • Ryan

    How is this any different then what Hitler tried doing to the Jewish people? If my wife were to deem my son or daughter a “burden,” and should die because of her laziness I would divorce her and take the baby. I would rather be a single father then live with someone who thinks killing a baby is better then responsibility. This disgusts me!

  • Sherrie

    All babies put a burden on parents. Most of us enjoy all parts of our children’s lives. And we love that burden with all our hearts! Parenting can be a difficult job. So these people are starting out with the smallest helpless little HUMANS! Wonder if they had parents who hated the burden of raising them? Next it will be the disabled elderly. They might be considered a burden. So once you become “unable to do for yourself”, it is ok to “post long-life abort” these precious people? How about those people of any age that have an illness or disability? Just perform a post-healthy abortion. Burden all gone! God says He knew us “before we were formed in our mothers’ wombs”. Life is a gift from our Creator. If these people have children, which one of those “burdens” would they
    choose to abort…post birth? Tired of
    being a parent, don’t want to be a parent, don’t want to take care of your parent – just post-birth abort them. After all, it isn’t infanticide or murder, so there is no problem, right?

  • http://twitter.com/MikiStewart Michelle Stewart

    Extend those ethical boundaries far enough, and these ethicists could find themselves in jeopardy.

  • http://www.facebook.com/vonda.rochelle Vonda Rochelle

    Very good article. I had this discussion with a Facebook friend. She was arguing that until a person shows “intelligent thought processes” it was a viable option. When I told her that if that were the case, she needed to make certain that she did not disappoint or anger her own mother because using her own logic, she would still be in danger of being the aborted in my opinion. Suffice it to say, she aborted our friendship link on Facebook. LOL

  • Richard Coletti

    There’s two sides to every coin … I propose that whenever a woman goes into an abortion clinic, the guy should be made to go with her and undergo a “male abortion” at the same time. That is to say, the man who got the woman pregnant should have his gonads removed, severed, amputated … (I think you get the idea).

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-P-Francis/1003693413 Robert P Francis

    Well, with their sort of logic anyone can kill anyone for any reason then. With the sick deformed mentality in america today, I imagine someday this will be allowed here to, before long under performing teenagers with be next and grandparents. What sort of demented person could call themselves an ethicist and be for this? Killing children is the most unethical behavior or action there is.

  • courtney m moore

    IM GONNA CRY,I HAD TO STOP READING,just looking at that beautiful baby breaks my heart,just hearing my son cry makes me cry tears of joy and I’m 17 and he’s only a month old

  • hchristinec

    I just don’t understand the hatred of children some people have, like the group who want to make it o.k. for pedophilia.

  • hchristinec

    I think that most young women who have abortions regret it and those who don’t are in denial.

  • Daisytoo

    So, these abortion enthusiasts have no difficulty saying that all life .. in or out of utero .. is worthless. This, my friends, is atheism unveiled.

  • Jack

    If this becomes the norm and even passed, imagine all the mothers in prison that will want their convictions overturned.

  • http://www.facebook.com/JInfieldPierce Jonna Infield Pierce

    Unbelievable! I thank God everyday for my kids. I hated when they hurt themselves; skinned knee, broken hearts. I don’t judge others, for it is not my place, but I honestly cannot wrap my head around loving something more than yourself and deeming it unfit to live! If you carry a child for 9 months and YOU give that child life, bringing it into this world, I don’t know how you could turn around and harm it much less kill it! Horrid, horrid, horrid!

  • steve

    I think the first thing to note is that two ethicists mentioned above are Consequentialists, (besides being twisted). They’re concept of rights is not what we take them to means. For a Consequentialist an act is ethical if and only if it maximizes some good, there are no true rights, just pseudo rights since they are subject to maximizing this good.

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  • megs2013

    This makes me sick reading this. How could anyone do such a thing, if you are not ready to be a parent and it causes so much stress and is a burden then keep it in your pants . I had my son when I was 21 with my now fiance who I have been with for 5 years now. When we first found out we were asked “are you keeping it “. Yes it did cross my mind that im not ready for this we took extra extra steps on being careful but i never wanted to get a abortion but maybe adoption. But I realized it was a blessing that I became pregnant it was a sign that I need to grow up and grow up fast. Newborns are not a burden they are a precious gift ! Anyone that thinks killing a newborn after you give birth to them because its just a inconvenience and your not ready needs to be charged with murder. Your taking away a precious human life that could very well go to a very much deserving family. Rather then killing your precious new buddle of joy because your not happy ; put him/her up for adoption. There are so many women and men who can not have kids and who would be more then happy to give a newborn a loveing careing home full of happiness and a well deserved life!

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  • SADSQUATCH

    I THINK ANYONE THAT THINKS PARTIAL OR AFTER BIRTH ABORTIONS ARE OK FOR WHATEVER BS REASON…THEY ALSO SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO ABORT THEMSELVES AT THE TIME OF THE PROCEDURE. LET THAT WOMAN CHOOSE TO GO WITH HER “FETUS”…..MAYBE STICK HER IN A JAR OF TOXIC SOLUTION OR A LETHAL INJECTION OR PERHAPS “SNIPPING THE WOMANS SPINAL CORD?” IF THATS ANYWAY SHAPE OR FORM OK FOR A DEFENSELESS BABY…WHY NOT THE MOM TOO, AFTER ALL ITS THE WOMANS RIGHT TO CHOOSE. :( REST IN PEACE ALL THOSE LITTLE PEOPLE TORN FROM THIS WORLD,,, WHEN DID BEING A MORAL PERSON BECOME SUCH A HATED THING?

  • cathouse-mama

    all I can think of, is what was going through Hitler’s mind to come up with the same ideations……