Doctors: let us kill disabled babies
That's a pretty bold headline, which appeared recently at the top of a on the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology which is calling on the medical profession to openly debate infant euthanasia (or "infanticide", as some would prefer to name the proposal). According to the College:
A very disabled child can mean a disabled family ... If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making, even preventing some late abortions, as some parents would be more confident about continuing a pregnancy and taking a risk on outcome.
This is a version of the developed some years ago by the Australian ethicist . When Singer was appointed to a senior chair at Princeton University in 1998, his arguments in defence of infant euthanasia proved so controversial that various presidential candidates that year (gearing up for the 2000 primaries) felt obliged to call for his immediate dismissal. At one point, Singer was given police protection. The argument's most famous British advocate is the Manchester University medical ethics professor
The argument, in one form, runs like this: If we can defend the termination of a pregnancy in cases where it is severe disability is suspected, we can defend euthanasia in cases where a child is born with that severe disability. The claim made by some is that the same logic underlies both scenarios. There are quite a few "pro-life" advocates prepared to countenance abortion in the first scenario (including, for example, President Bush), while clearly opposing what they would regard as "infanticide" in the second scenario. But how can the second moral argument be rejected while the first is accepted? It's a complex debate, which I'll be pursuing with the ethicist Dr John Catherwood (a former student of Singer's) and Dr Moyna Bill (a consultant anaesthetist) on tomorrow's Sunday Sequence at about 10 am.
Comments
How do you put a value on a human life and say one is worth keeping and the other should be disposed of? This is true of both babies and the elderly. Where do you draw the line? If we think of families with disabled children as "disabled families", is a family caring for a grandparent with Alzheimers also disabled? And if you begin drawing the line and practicing euthanasia on disabled babies, then I agree with Anne on this, those with disabilities WILL feel worth less than those who are generally healthy. In the short term it is a pragmatic solution, but in the long term, it will prove an ethical nightmare.
The problem here is only a problem for those people who agree with abortion in certain cases - since the logic used to defend such abortions can apply much wider than advocates of such arguments would like to admit. For years pro-life people have stated that once abortion is allowed using such logic that we are on a slippery slope. Seems like we were right.
G.