http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full

Abstract

Quite a controversial topic and tricky to discuss.



I know someone who has suffered from a lack of oxygen through the birth process, which resulted in a brain defect. Nevertheless, he is able to live a normal life and is also allowed -- and does -- drive a car for instance. The aspect of euthanasia hangs around this topic ...

I don't want to be disrespectful, but what exactly is the objective of this thread?

Aren't we ethically and morally obliged as human beings to do all we can to protect and care for helpless new borns? Not sure I want to live in a world where it's normal for a healthy infant to be considered for anything but our upmost support.

Often thought about those in the womb with a serious disability, and the care level they would need from the parent(s) for many years. Wouldn't like to be ever faced with such a decision and think only the mother should decide, and if she is unable finacially to raise the child but wants to understandably keep her child (what ever it's condition) the state should step in, we are in the twenty first century after all and money shouldn't be a relevant factor when one large missile costs as much as a person would need for care in its entire lifetime.

Maybe you can judge a species by how it looks after it's disabled and young especially at a time when they're at their most vulnerable?

When they're adults and inflict grevious harm and are a continued threat to others is another debate entirely.

The Pre-persons by Philip K. Dick seems like a relevant reading here. As for the actual article, its premise is flawed: not being able to attribute value to one's existence is no reason to be denied the right to life. Funny how the authors apparently don't consider being able to attribute value to one's existence reason enough to be granted the right to life, given how they use criminals sentenced to death penalty as an example of humans that aren't considered persons (by their own debatable definition of person) and therefore don't have a right to life.

Isn't "after-birth abortion" just a nice way of saying infanticide?

Only if you were throwing the infant into a river, or something. Come on. I don't agree with after-birth abortion, but abortion itself I'm all for. If a mother is not financially able to care for a child, the state should not HAVE to step in, she should of thought of that before having a baby. And if it was an accident, well, looks like you're going for an abortion, lady. I don't mean to sound callous, but the whole "Oh, you're murdering a fetus!" argument is such bullshit. It's not like they CAN'T have a baby ever again if they get an abortion.

In the case of after-birth abortion, though, that baby should be allowed to live simply on the grounds that the mother decided to have it, and now should face the music. Whether that's a punishment or a gift is left up to them, but if they didn't bother to get an abortion when the new-born was still an unconscious fetus, they don't deserve to have the choice anymore.

Isn't that just another way of killing an... infant?

I just wanted to add something. It always should be the parents/woman's decision.

Just wait until the world population exceeds 9 or 10 billion, or whatever amount necessary for a Malthusian catastrophe to occur in developing nations. Say there is a couple, and both are starving. They have a baby... that's a third mouth to feed. Why not kill it? The malnutrition of the mother might have already reduced the likelihood of the baby surviving anyway.

Brutal as it may be, that doesn't mean infanticide will become the norm in developed nations - only if localized poverty gets to such an extreme that illegal baby-killing is performed in these nations, but the perpetrators will probably face murder charges.

The world population is unsustainable as it is, and it is growing bigger and bigger by the decade. This will mean more starvation, more war, more strife and more dead babies.

Oh my God. *laughs*

I'm pro-choice and all that progressive shit, but there's a point when a fetus becomes a viable product and thus is considered a (little helpless) person and at this point abortion becomes a big no no.

and this post-bitrh abortion means that if I'm not content with how my child is growing I can "abort" him, lets say, at Age 8.

Not really. A line has to be drawn somewhere, for pragmatic juridical reasons, and anyone suggesting it should be placed at some point after the birth is a troll, desperately looking for attention, or one of those who should have been aborted themselves when they got to college. Most people with any real experience in life agree that late term abortions are already morally repugnant, and then someone has to suggest infanticide, probably just for shits and giggles; the result is that someone on the net takes it seriously enough to suggest it's a "tricky topic to discuss". It isn't, if you have half a brain; but any idea, no matter how outlandish, insane, retarded, or simply trolled well enough always has some support on the net, just because people are not the sharpest tools on this planet.

I'm sorry to say, but this thread is not viable, and must be aborted in the name of the MA Brain Function Eugenics Program. Too retarded to live, too infective in certain target audiences, and really pitiful to watch.