GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: The Eternal Return of the Infanticide Debate

domingo, 18 de septiembre de 2016

The Eternal Return of the Infanticide Debate

The Eternal Return of the Infanticide Debate

Bioedge

The eternal return of the infanticide debate

by Xavier Symons | 17 Sep 2016 |

Bioethicists have not given up on the idea of infanticide, with a Scandinavian ethicist publishing a new paper in the journal Bioethics defending arguments for post-birth abortion.

Joona Rasanen, a recent graduate from the University of Helsinki Social and Moral Philosophy program, responds to various criticisms of the infanticide arguments advanced by bioethicists Alberto Giulbilini and Francesca Minerva in their controversial 2012 paper “After birth abortion – Why should the baby live?”.

Rasanen focuses in particular on four arguments against infanticide advanced by US ethicist Christopher Kaczor. Kaczor suggests that Giubilini and Minerva rely on a series of unjustified claims about the nature of personhood.

Rasanen defends the view that we can define human personhood in terms of characteristics like consciousness, rather than having to ground it in some metaphysical account of substance.

"Every being grants (sic) full human rights when -- not before -- she reaches enough of those criteria that are needed to be counted as being a person (whatever those criteria may be)."

He also criticises the claim that the permissibility of non-conscious infants implies that it is permissible to kill unconscious adults.

"...if infanticide is morally permissible, it does not mean that killing people in their sleep would be morally permissible as well. The former can be morally permissible because infants are never-been-conscious substances while adults are have-been-conscious substances."

Giubilini and Minerva’s 2012 paper sparked a media firestorm and has been a source of ongoing discussion in academic bioethics.

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/the-eternal-return-of-the-infanticide-debate/12002#sthash.CjriyDPM.dpuf

Bioedge

Today is a landmark, of sorts. It marks the first time that a child has been euthanised under contemporary euthanasia laws. Of course, euthanising infants is relatively common, but not children who are old enough to be asked if they really want to die. The death occurred last week in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, although it was announced today by Belgium's euthanasia supremo, Wim Distelmans. His words were very sober and solemn, as befits the occasion, but I suspect that he and his colleagues are quietly happy to see the boundaries of euthanasia spread even further.

Ultimately this is a triumph for out-and-out nihilism, not just Belgium's inventive euthanasia lobby. Nihilism is a philosophical fad which seems to catching on. Below we feature a report on three American bioethicists who argue the case for population control to fight climate change and a defense of infanticide by a Finnish bioethicist. I've also just discovered a new book by South African philosopher David Benatar. In it he argues that procreation is morally wrong because life's a bitch and then you die (I am over-simplifying, of course.) He concludes his book with these cheerful thoughts:

Every birth is a future death. Between the birth and the death there is bound to be plenty of unpleasantness ... Inflicting serious harm—or even the risk of it—on one person, without his or her consent, in order to benefit others, is presumptively wrong.

If I'm right, euthanising a child is not an terminus for Belgian euthanasia, but just a bus stop en route to pure nihilism. What its supporters are trying to eliminate is not just pain, but life itself. What do you think?