The field of bioethics seems to be less and less concerned about what is considered ethical in medicine, and more and more concerned with justifying a culture of death. It’s no longer enough for abortion to be legal; bioethicists are increasingly calling for the murder of born infants to be permitted. And though these calls for legal infanticide are always met with outrage, they continue to come.
READ: Bioethicists push for doctors to be forced to commit abortion, assisted suicide
Finnish bioethicist Joona Räsänen has argued in the medical journal Bioethics that pro-life arguments against infanticide “are not convincing” and “cannot show infanticide to be immoral.” While Räsänen has not argued for infanticide to be legal — yet — he does argue that parents might have the moral right to kill their born children.
[T]here might be an argument that gives, for example, the genetic parents a right to kill (or leave to die) their newborn infant even if the infant has a right to life. For example, it might be argued that people have a right to their genetic privacy and having the newborn infant in the world that carries the genetic material of the genetic parents violates their right to genetic privacy. Put another way: the fetus does not have a right to the genetic material of her parents.
Older children are different, he claims, because they have been alive longer and have “a strong time‐relative interest to continue living.”
Räsänen is just the latest bioethicist to argue that born children should be permitted to be killed by their parents. Australian bioethicists sparked international anger after arguing in favor of “after-birth” abortion, especially for children with disabilities like Down syndrome where “such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”
They shockingly claimed, “Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.”
READ: Horrifying: Ethicist says abortion after birth is moral
Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer has likewise argued in favor of infanticide, especially for babies with disabilities. When asked if he would kill a baby with a disability, Singer answered, “Yes, if that was in the best interests of the baby and of the family as a whole.”
Missing from this conversation is the fact that once in existence, a human being has a right to his or her life, and parents’ desire for the “privacy” of their own “genetic material” should in no way override someone else’s right to continue to exist. The so-called “right to privacy” has killed far too many individuals. Once killing is accepted as being moral, through abortion or euthanasia, it will continue to grow and spread. All human beings have the right to life — but once that principle is abandoned or not recognized, there is no shortage to the horrors people will excuse.
