This is an archive of the old Stones Cry Out site. For the current site, click here.
« The Great Misreading | Main | Speaker Pelosi? Maybe Not... »
November 13, 2006
Abortion After the Fact
In Britian, they want to open up the discussion on whether abortion can happen sometime after the baby has already been born.
Doctors involved in childbirth are calling for an open discussion about the ethics of euthanasia for the sickest of newborn babies. The option to end the suffering of a severely damaged newborn baby - who might have been aborted if the parents had known earlier the extent of its disabilities and potential suffering - should be discussed, says the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in its evidence to an inquiry by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which examines ethical issues raised by new developments.The college says the Nuffield's working group should "think more radically about non-resuscitation, withdrawal of treatment decisions, the best-interests test and active euthanasia as they are means of widening the management options available to the sickest of newborns".
The inquiry is looking into "the ethics of prolonging life in foetuses and the newborn". Euthanasia was not originally on the agenda, because of its illegality. But the RCOG submission has persuaded the inquiry to broaden its investigation, although any recommendation favouring euthanasia for newborns is highly unlikely before a change in the law.
Once one envelope has been successfully pushed aside, the next lies not that far away. The question of extraordinary lifesaving steps is one thing, but "active euthanasia" brings the matter into a whole new light. One has to wonder where the ethics and morality of those wanting such discussions to take place have gone.
And here's an interesting attempt at selling the idea.
The college ethics committee tells the inquiry it feels euthanasia "has to be covered and debated for completion and consistency's sake ... 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." It points out that a pregnant woman who discovers at 28 weeks that her baby has a serious abnormality can have an abortion. Parents of a baby born at 24 weeks with the same abnormality have no such option.
"See, if this were an option, then we'd have more babies carried to term. Isn't that wonderful? Only then would be bother with the eugenics. And really now, isn't killing an already-born preemie just the same as a late-term abortion anyway?"
Abortion, being commonplace in our society, is now the foundation on which we start removing the infirm and the helpless. A comment on the Redstate post that gets the hat tip notes this:
I remember fairly recently they just uncovered a mass grave filled with Hitler's first victims. They weren't Jews, Gays, Gypsies or any other people group. They were the disabled and infirm. Now the reason they were killed was for the perfection of the race, but I also don't swallow the "it is for their own good" argument-especially when those who are being put out of the misery may not have a voice or a choice.
Unfettered abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia and eugenics are all faces of the same thing; a lack of respect for life.
Posted by Doug at November 13, 2006 01:23 PM
Trackback Pings
Comments
Taking this mone more logical step, what happens when a parent, definately a woman, get's "tired" of dealing with a 3 year old?
Can she then go back and declare that she now wants to abort this child? This child that has been living 3 years?
Just a thought.
Posted by: Mark Triplett at November 13, 2006 02:26 PM
I suppose you should know if you like the kid or not by the time they are 3 , shouldn't you ?
Something for pro- choicers to concider....
If conception is NOT when life begins,and a clump of cells is just that and not a living human being.
Then at least concider this-
Soon after you were conceived you were no more than a clump of cells.
This clump of cells was you at your earliest stage, you had plenty of growing to do but this clump of cells was you none the less. Think about it.
Aren't you glad you were left unhindered to develope further.
Safe inside your mother until you were born.
Posted by: ausblog at November 15, 2006 10:46 AM
"I suppose you should know if you like the kid or not by the time they are 3, shouldn't you ? "
Good thought, I was just trying to make the point that given the line of reasoning that if a parent of a disabled child, mentally or physically, can decide to "abort" sometine after birth leads to the thinking that the same could happen with a perfectly healthy small child that inconveniences the life of the parent.
A ship that is off course by as little as one degree can over a week can be hundreds of miles off course. We wonder how we got here? We got there by small, small steps off course.
Posted by: Mark Triplett at November 15, 2006 12:46 PM
what happens to the cells after abortion?
Posted by: O at August 29, 2007 07:12 PM