Of course, as the… [Journal of Medical Ethics]’ editor notes, after-birth abortion isn’t really new: “The arguments presented, in fact, are largely not new and have been presented repeatedly in the academic literature and public fora by the most eminent philosophers and bioethicists in the world, including Peter Singer, Michael Tooley, and John Harris in defence of infanticide.” And let’s not forget that the ancient Greeks left their unwanted children on the mountainside to die, too, Mr. Editor.
This makes it even more noteworthy that the article concedes that a fetus is, in fact, a human being: “Both a foetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.” They go on to argue that “the interests of actual people override the interest of merely potential people. Since non-persons have no moral rights to life, there are no reasons for banning after-birth abortions.”
I nominate the articles authors as the test-case for “after birth” abortions…..