When is God going to help us?

‘Potential Person’ is one of those secularist media catch phrases, like ‘Contraception’, in which they include abortifacients and sterilization, and ‘Stem Cell Research’ under which they include both adult and embryonic stem cell research, and ‘Urbanization’ the new ‘clean’ word for Global Warming and Climate Change…!!!

That makes me sick.

I really wish more pro-aborts would come out an admit this. Peter Singer did, now these 2.  That way, those who insist on holding the fallacious “I’m pro-choice not pro-abortion” argument will have to get off the fence and make a decision (hopefully for life!).  I think we’re getting closer.  A few years ago, a proabortion activist (can’t remember who now) said that they need to come out and admit that abortion is killing a human life-but that it’s ok and for the best sometimes. In 1973 they were able to get away with denying the humanity of the unborn, but not anymore. You can’t deny scientific fact. I believe our society has one of two ways to go: We either overturn Roe v. Wade and start protecting the defenseless, or we descend into the same pit as these “ethicists” and just start allowing the random killing of anyone who’s not “useful”. I pray we go the right way.

Brother Matthew,  Search out Dr. Emmanuel and other medical “ethicists” advising our President.  This news is neither shocking, nor is it unexpected.  It is what exists in their writings and journals, and also exists between the lines of our national health care plan.  One advisor has actually published “ethics” papers stating that children aren’t “persons” as they have little value and contribute little to society.  Logically, if a fetus isn’t a person and can be aborted, then a child who isn’t a “person” can be killed as well.
... We are taken back to abortion in these United States and indiviual rights.  Without the right to life, no other right has any meaning and can be determined at the whim of the culture on any given day.

TR-When we help ourselves.  God gave most of us a voice and a brain.

Question—-Why is it that left wing pro-choice/abortion liberals scream “Are you saying I am a Nazi?” when compared to that regime’s “line in the sand” tactics to define someone’s humanity.  I will now answer “yes”.

Fran, I hate to break it to you, but global warming and climate change are real and not simply “political science” (or so they are portrayed). There are several books on the topic that explain everything and it would be great if you got one from your local library. I, for example, used to support Intelligent Design being taught in public schools, but then I read some books by Catholic biologist “Kenneth R. Miller” who explained how it’s premise is distinctly unscientific by nature.

I recommend ‘Ethics of Abortion’ by Christopher Kaczor. The book does an excellent job in countering these arguments as well as revealing their flaws, even from strictly within the field of ethics. It’s a useful tool for countering arguments made by those who automatically dismiss any arguments made by the Church. It’s a little dense, but I believe it is necessary that we have the tools to counter these arguments effectively as christians.
God bless! And remember; do not despair, for we are a people of hope.

Ethicists without God are cars with no brakes.

Orwell would have had a field day with these two clowns.

These fools are undercutting their own reason for existence. If hujans can decide at any time who lives and who dies, I think at some point some lawless person will decide that these monsters should die. When you abandon God and His sovereignty over life and death, ever increasing evil is the only outcome. We’re there in the West.

Medical-ethics seems to be a field where one studies neither medicine nor ethics.

This sort of thinking, while not new (as Ellen noted, Peter Singer for one has advocated this line of thought for decades) creates a dangerous slope.  If a baby is not a person and can be killed after birth, then it is only a short hop to argue that not only can some babies be killed but they should be killed.  Right now we have managed to convince something like 90% of mothers of Down’s babies to abort their children.  All that really protects the remaining 10% is the rights of the mother to not have an invasive procedure done against her will.  Imagine a world where the remaining 10% are killed at birth because it is not seen as cost effective to treat them and hey they are not people anyway.  And once that step is taken, I can see similar logic being applied for other reasons like population control.

Yeah, they throw around both “potential persons” and “actual persons.”  Ugh.

On another note, why did you put “abstract” in quotes? That is standard academic paper notation, nothing sinister in it worth the quotes like the other words you used in quotes.

Thank you, so much, digdigby!  I love your quote
“Ethicists without God are cars with no brakes”. So, true, so true….

Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva do not know what they are ethicising about. Personhood is endowed by our Creator as part of the immortal, rational soul. These individuals, I will not called them doctors, are talking about personality, a person’s response to his own rational soul. The existence of, or condition of, personality proves the existence of the immortal rational soul. A human being without his soul is dead. The state does not create life, nor endow unalienable rights, nor bring the person, the human being composed of body and soul into existence. God, our Creator, WHO is BEING and EXISTENCE gives life, personhood and a rational mind through a rational soul.

“potential persons” “actual persons” and “former persons” Nice goin’ guys, now we are ready for euthanasia, just to keep the money flowing. If you do not feel threatened by this illogical, virulent anti-humanistic, anti-secularistic satanspiel, in their mind and in their mouth, you have already become a “former person”. Ten years ago an aspirin in a hospital cost $10.00. Today, that same aspirin in that same hospital costs $150.00. With OBAMACARE, THAT SAME ASPIRIN IN THAT SAME HOSPITAL WILL COST $1,500.00. The victimless crime: stealing from the taxpayers. Taxes belong to the taxpayers even while being stolen, extorted, confiscated, re-distributed, and unlawfully appropriated by the administration. I was once threatened with death by a punk in the street, whom I later hauled into court. I told him that I would come back and get him and he could not kill me twice, and he ran away. It is time to remind our dear ethicists that you and I are going to come back and get them and they cannot kill us twice.

“Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

The duty of the state is to protect the virginity and the moral and legal innocence of the newly begotten human being who is a sovereign person, the standard of Justice for the state. “moral status as actual persons” 1)The act of free will of the sovereign person in the womb constitutes the state, therefore, the “actual person” is acting by constituting the state as soon as he is conceived. 2) The soul of the person, when two become one, is dismissed as irrelevant, morally, legally and actually irrelevant. The state dispenses personhood to the immortal, rational soul at will through the will of the people? 3)Actual people then must be the killers because newborns do not usually kill themselves. ”after-birth abortion” (killing a newborn) how about (killing an oldborn)? Oh, you are already doing that, so it does not need social sanctions. This is really sick.

Ellen, the person you’re thinking of was Naomi Wolf.  She wrote an article a few years ago (forget for which mag, but it was a pretty well-known one) after having kids in which she said basically what you summarized - that she realized now that it is the taking of a human life, that she had done it in the past too casually, and perhaps women need to think about that more since nowadays saying that it’s not a life discredits the pro-abortion movement.  While she certainly wasn’t willing to say she was wrong, it gave me great hope that pro-abortion folks like her are starting to travel down that path.  Once you do, it’s hard to go back.  I know….I did it.  The only thing that worries me is that in the quest to justify what becomes more and more obvious to be a grave, immoral sin the argument will become “It IS a life, but taking it is ok,” and will stop there.  Our society has a choice in front of us as this issue comes to a head:  we can either see it for what it is and turn back, or see it for what it is and dive further into the morass of justifications and excuses.  I pray we choose the first.

Ryan Peters, global warming, oh I’m sorry it’s “climate change” now, is nothing but political hooey.  You gave yourself away when you characterized Kenneth R. Miller as Catholic.  He is about as Catholic as “Sister” Carol Keehan.  Nice try, though.

The looming tragedy will be the mass-euthanasia of aging baby boomers who had too few babies.  That euthanasia is simple enough: ration medicine based on worth to the state, every retiree killed is money saved.  Given the anti-growth policies and a refusal to reform entitlements now, when social security goes broke it will all be about death with dignity.  If newborns are to have no rights, what of the elderly?  They will never pay taxes, use most of the medical care, and their mental capacity starts to fade in some cases.

All those people who thought that Roe v Wade would usher in la vita dolce, are going to find themselves on the receiving end of it.  But that is how deals with the Devil go.

Regarding the “ethics” experts, if one race of people really are below average in their ability to be aware or below average in their utility to the state, should they be liquidated?  Or have benevolent supervision (I.e., slavery?).  Why not?  The people who defended slavery 150 years ago would have defended it a lot better if they had these arguments at hand.

Given the controversy over late-term abortion, Giubilini and Minerva are taking a remarkably silly approach to the ethical question of whether it’s OK to kill a newborn. It makes me wonder if they’re just hungry for controversy or they oppose abortion and are trying to scare people with this paper.

The thing that makes abortion a unique ethical problem is that a fetus is a person who has to live inside another person to survive. This creates a not inconsiderable risk to that person, as well as permanent physical changes not always for the better, discomfort, inconvenience and varying degrees of pain and trauma at delivery. To me the question is, does the fetus have the right to live inside of an unwilling host? For me the answer is no, and I’m content to leave the question up to each woman.

However when you get to the seventh or eighth month of pregancy, the fetus might survive outside its mother’s body. At this point the ethics, for me, are much more complicated, although I’m still prepared to leave the decision between a woman and her doctor. Such abortions are quite rare, and usually done for serious medical reasons.

Once the child is born, I see no reason to allow the mother to make the decision to kill the child. She can walk away. At that point you’re talking about the morality of euthanasia, and that’s a different subject.

TR:  “When will God help us?” Perhaps when our priests, Bishops, and seminary faculties repent in sack cloth and ashes for having misled Catholics so grievously for the past 40+ years either through comission (teaching falsehoods) or omission (silence). The seeds that they have sown have turned into huge wild thornbushes that are strangling the Church. Their easy, popular and convenient compliance with evil has backfired. Hopefully, the fight that most are giving this mandate will help. But sackcloth and ashes are also needed, because it just might be too late. Get prepared to walk around with an armband with a giant “C” on it for “Catholic”, and a possible second holocaust. At least another reign of terror could be at hand, as one thing does lead to another. Repent, repent, repent. Publicly. They need to try to repair the evil tney have done.

I just submitted a comment, and when I hit the “submit” button I read that the comment had to be reviewed by a moderator because it might be spam! How does this happen? I’ve comments on articles before and was never suspected of being spam. I’m not a spammer!

Full text available at:

http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/02/22/medethics-2011-100411.full

Ethics, as a branch of philosophy, requires reason, which is wholly lacking from this absurd “thesis”. Morality and practical ethics must always conform to reason and logic. What one can say is that the same irrationality applied to killing persons pre-birth, is being applied to killing them for a period after birth. It clarifies and intensifies the absurdity of the denial of personhood to any category of human being. All human beings are persons; one doesn’t have to have attained a certain level of cognitive ability to become a person. If killing a baby after birth is morally wrong, so too is killing them before birth.

Before we go lumping all ethicists together with these two, let me point out that there are some extraordinarily bright men and women of God working in that field.  I would suggest reading some of Fr. Tad’s work at the National Catholic Bioethics Center.  It’s a group which, as far as I can tell anyway, stays faithful to the Magisterium.  http://ncbcenter.org/

Of course ‘ethicists’, utilitarians, libertarians, and secularists, even humanists, think that abortion is legal, forced abortion is inevitable, and “post-abortion” is necessary.  To them, killing anybody who they say is not a “valuable member of society” is a right.  Crying babies?  Kill them.  Unemployed men?  Kill them.  Criminals?  Kill them.  People with CF?  Kill them.  Sight and hearing impaired people?  Kill them.  Unemployed elderly, people with chronic illnesses, non-whites….

Who shouldn’t be killed, in their view?  Bankers, lawyers, their personal friends and families (if they have one), the rich, the working poor.  Everyone else is fair game.

WE have not just ‘touched’ the bottom of the barrel, we have gone through it clear to the other side of the bottom.

This is an outrage….I hokd the female population responsible for this atrocity…YOU LADIES….are the reason this was allowed to happen.
Do an examination of your conscience….and try to say you are not partly guilty for this.

Mr. Archbold could doubtless have offered us a more edifying critique of the “ethicists” arguments—surely an example what I have in other forums characterized as “the causistry of demons”—had he paid the $30.  Rest assured not a dime would go to either Prof. Giubilini or Prof. Minerva, who signed away all rights to their paper to the BMJ Publishing Group, Ltd. in exchange for the prestige of being published in the Journal of Medical Ethics (which might get them promotions or bigger raises).  The $30 would only line the pockets of the management and shareholders of the publisher.

Kate, thanks for posting about the article by Naomi Wolf.  I’m going to look it up.  In the 1990s, I read her book “The Beauty Myth,” which was a good examination of the fashion idustry’s/cosmetic makers’/media’s effects on girls’ ideas about body image and their own beauty (or lack thereof).  Since then, I’ve not read anything else by her, but I will be searching for this article.

On the comment about the special ethical problem posed by abortion:

We have to start using words correctly.  The corruption of language is shown by these “ethicists,” who are talking about “post-birth” abortion, which is rather like talking about post-utterance gags.  First, “abortion,” which used simply to denote a miscarriage (what we now call “abortion” was itself a weaselly euphemism, a lie—“induced abortion”), means that something never gets to arise in the first place.  A baby cannot be “aborted,” once it has already arisen to the shores of light.  Then: the mother is not the baby’s “host”.  That word is simply inaccurate—it is biological nonsense.  The baby is not a parasite.  It is a baby—and, more than that, its very existence, except in the case of rape, is owing to the mother’s own voluntary action.  She is its MOTHER, and she of all people is morally bound to support that child at least until someone else will take it from her.

> I could buy the article for $30 and I was close to doing it but then I thought why > am I giving these animals my money. I’d essentially be paying these “ethicists” to > write more about the right of killing humans.

The authors of this dreadful paper are not “animals”. They are deeply misguided human beings who seem to have lost their connection with their own hearts. They deserve pity, not abuse.

And as a point of detail, it’s highly unlikely they would get a cent of your $30. The journal would pocket the lot, if it follows the usual publication model.

step by step we march,SEIG HEIL .We fought ww2 to defeat this type of state dominated thinking and control of all aspects of our lives.The socialists,nazis,communists,state centered and all totalitarian regimes want total control of us.Stop them now while you can,or wake up tomorrow without your freedom.

I have to agree with James: This makes me sick!!

I think Deepak Chopra said it best when he said that our species is not “human doing” or “human thinking”, but “human BEING”.

What is the cut-off for when a newborn stops being newly-born? Can you kill a day-old infant? A week-old infant? A month-old infant? A year-old infant? A thirty-something medical-ethics infant?

These two flukes of nature are right, along with those that use the term “pro-choice” in a way that takes away all choice, except death to the young unborn baby. The baby when it grows up to be able to make the choice, should be allowed to murder it’s mother and all of those that support birth control and abortion (both the same, just different actions); after all, what is good for the goose is good for the gander and an eye for an eye, etc.; except, now we have Jesus, and He says to do good to those that cause you harm, so, we will have to just pray that the Holy Spirit will come down upon not only these two, but all of those that put themselves ahead of their child. Hey, thanks JASON, for your comments to Ryman, boy is he in the dark. For 6000 years since the Flood, the climate is constantly changing and maybe he should take a trip over to Europe where is was so hot that the Pope was watching the snow from his window.  Sally: you are so right and all of us should be wearing sackcloth and ashes as well, it will match the big “C” on our sleeves.  +JMJ+

Hey Alberto and Francesca, just Kill YOURSELF and do us all a favor

I too would agree with James: This makes me sick!!

This madness has to be stopped.

These 2 things(can not be called people) have not had the honor and never will I might add, of meeting my little angel Joseph. He is one that these 2 things would have killed. He is the light of anyone who has ever met him. He is a true gift and makes everyone smile. I thank God for him everyday and also for the fact that some “things” will get their just reward in the end.

Does no-one get the feeling that the two academics behind this are anti-choice and have written the paper as a feeble attempt to equate killing a healthy newborn (which undeniably has the same rights as any other human) to the termination of a fetus (which clearly does not)?

The basic premise that newborns somehow have no rights is flatly untrue.

It’s funny to see the zealots on both sides gnashing their teeth at what seems to be academic trolling.

Also: the two ‘academics’ look to be in their early 20s.

I call shenanigans.

The HHS Mandate is only the tip of the iceburg. Right now it mandates contraceptives and sterilization, next abortion, then Euthanasia. Then what, kill anybody you don’t like, or anybody the disagrees with you.

I think comments like “These 2 things (can not be called people)” are just as off-the-mark as this paper by Giubilini and Minerva. Humans with reprehensible or otherwise offensive ideas or viewpoints have just as much inherent human dignity, and are just as much persons, as the unborn and the newborn.

Matthew, thank you for sharing this post! It IS difficult—horrifying, even—but absolutely essential for Catholics, other Christians, and everyone else to understand exactly what is at stake in furthering the aims of “pro-choice.” A few decades ago, one of my college history professors advised us, “If you want to see where a trend is headed or if a social theory is good or bad, just take it to its logical extreme. No matter how absurd or unlikely it may seem, that is what will happen in reality at some point in the future.”

Julie, I’d generally agree with what your history professor said, but this is not taking the idea to a logical extreme, but ad absurdum.

For a similar device, meant to illustrate (ad absurdum) man’s inhumanity to non-humans, please read the wonderful ‘Babycakes’ by Neil Gaiman, written for PETA.

http://ljconstantine.com/babycakes/page1.htm

This paper seems to have been written by undergrads, in order to provoke. I suspect they’re anti choice, but they may just be trying to ruffle feathers.

So is the step after that to extend the age to 13? After all under 13 children are still very much potential human beings? Then let’s extend it to 18 because if your not an adult then you really aren’t much. Then extend it to if you are an adult without a job because then you are not a contributing member of society. Oh and don’t forget if anyone is disabled or becomes disabled they should be bumped off too because they put a financial strain on the medical systems. When does it stop? It’s just like in Germany with the rise of the Nazis. They started with the mentally and physically “unfit” and progressed to the gypsies and Jews and so on. It started of slowly and grew. We saw where this road led and here we are treading down the same road. Take the blindfolds off people!!!!

Hector, contrary to popular belief, God does NOT help those who help themselves. This idea is entirely unbiblical!  See what messes it got the Israelites into! No, God hears the cry of the poor, the helpless, the humble. That is why we needed Jesus, because we could not save ourselves. As long as we act like we don’t need God, he will continue to respect our choice and stay distant.

Sally, what we ALL need to do, is to stop blaming others for our current state of society.  The solution to the rampant spread of evil and evil intentions, as illustrated in these so called “ethicists” words, is for ALL OF US to take responsibility for the utter mess our world and our Church is in.  ALL OF US need to drop to our knees in humility before the Lord God, to beg for forgiveness and ask that he (once again) rescue us from the mess that mankind has gotten himself into. Then, as He has in the past, will God hear our despairing cry and save us.

Are you sure the article wasn’t meant to provoke this kind of discussion? What is the background of the author(s)? “A Modest Proposal” was written by Swift as a satire to draw attention to the condition of poverty.

Or they can be genuinely stupid, like the people who actually believe in Creationism or “Intelligent Design” as a valid scientific theory.

Lets start with “After-Aborting” the mad scientists who came up with this idea…and if it works and really makes a big enough difference then we can move up the food chain and “After-Abort” the people who financed them, heck if we “After-Abort” all the globalists we might just end up creating a real utopia, without war or death and then we ditch the idea of abortions since the world will be cleaned up of the real problem, right?

David Carter,
These are the devil’s footsoldiers. Animals are innocent, not having rational souls and minds. These two have sold their souls to the devil and must be exorcised. I still write on my letters: “Not one penny of my tax dollars is to be spent on abortion,” It is my will, and those who violate my will, will answer for it. They are put on notice and ignorance of the law will not be their excuse. They have contempt for your pity, or mercy or compassion. They are bloodthirsty, bloodlusting demons. They will be dancing in hell when they have brought our souls and reason to hell with them. So, unless you really enjoy dancing on hot coals, you need to tell it like it is.

cowalker: “The thing that makes abortion a unique ethical problem is that a fetus is a person who has to live inside another person to survive. This creates a not inconsiderable risk to that person, as well as permanent physical changes not always for the better, discomfort, inconvenience and varying degrees of pain and trauma at delivery.” What makes you think that the newly conceived is all that happy with his/her mother or father, for that matter seeing as how his/her parents do not want him? “...All men are created EQUAL and endowed by our Creator, and our reliance on Divine Providence, we pledge our lives and sacred honor. undersigned by all the colonies of the United States of America. The sovereign person conceived constitutes our nation, constitutes the family and constitutes his parents, his mother and father. “a not inconsiderable risk and discomfort.” Yeah, tell that to the frozen men at Valley Forge.

Gee, it would be a waste of food:
http://news.yahoo.com/okla-senator-wants-ban-human-fetuses-food-235857183.html

Peter Singer of Princeton has been trying to get infanticide to the age of six years passed for the last twenty years. Now, people are calling this “make believe”. Aborted babies are eaten in China. “more make believe”. Aborted babies are used in cosmetics and shampoo in France. “more make believe”. Thomas Malthus was make believe. “The Population Bomb” was make believe because they did not factor into their beliefs Divine Providence, our Creator, and “IN GOD WE TRUST”. and Obama is getting as much as he can as fast as he can before he gets out. This issue is just another fuzz ball to cover the fact that our constitutional rights to the exercise of free will and conscience of the sovereign person, the citizen, is being ripped from our FREEDOM.

I wouldn’t attack the authors for writing this article! If anything, this article supports what prolifers have been saying all along - that there is no effective or logical difference in humanity between a baby “in” and “out” of the womb. Since - according to them - abortion is ok just because the mother says it is ok, then why CAN’T the parents make this decision after the birth as well? I, for one, THANK the authors for exposing the hypocrisy of the pro-abortion crowd. Until those who think that “it’s only a baby if the mother decides its a baby” can see the natural extension of this logic, we have little hope of convincing anyone that abortion is wrong.

If “self-awareness” is a qualification for being spared, then most of the drivers on the road are expendable.

Are these people insane!! This Is MURDER!!!

Laura and “Wake Up”,

It’s possible they’re trolling, but I’d guess not. I had a poke around, and there’s one other paper by Giubilini in English, which from the abstract (again, it’s behind a paywall) seems to be arguing a similar position:

http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/1/49.abstract

I couldn’t find anything at all by Minerva, which is kind of odd. But I doubt that two young postdocs would risk sabotaging their careers in this way; plus, the two journals concerned would presumably have to be in on the pretence (or be taken in by it, I suppose, which seems equally unlikely).

Mary de Voe, I’ve never met the authors, and even if I knew them well I wouldn’t feel it was up to me to judge the state of their souls. But even if their reaction was one of contempt towards pity, mercy and compassion, should one still not offer it? Who was it who said “Father, forgive them” about people manifesting just such contempt towards him? I didn’t think there were supposed to be any exceptions to that, but I could easily be wrong, I’m not a Catholic, just an interloper here.

I work in a healthcare facility. Medical ethics is founded on the dictum “do good and do no harm”. Most texts suggest that the ethicist’s job is to not make the decisions cut and dried, but to just facilitate a discussion of the risks of harm with various options.
    Unfortunately this group operates from the view that the baby doesn’t have any rights and isn’t wanted by the parent, and so there is no harm done in finishing the job. The fact that we have now rationalized our way out of a law that protect born children even if they were born accidentally, we are now on the slippery slope of determining whether other living humans who are not wanted can be similarly finished off. What’ll be next.
    Recently I had a discussion with some friends who were in favor of gay marriage, but when I suggested this now made it legal for a much older man to marry a young boy who is just at the age of consent, they both became very disturbed. Slippery slope.

The editor of the journal has just commented on why the paper was published:

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/02/handling-editor-defends-decision-after-birth-abortion/#more-2949

“Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.” From the article “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”

With regard to the above quote, merely being human is the sufficient and complete reason to ascribe someone a right to life.  There need be no other argument. 

An movement away from this spells death and disaster for all of us, not just those who are conspicuously unprotected at the moment.

May God help us.

alan

@ Sally who posted earlier about the CLERGY needing to be in sack-cloth and repenting for teaching falsely or not teaching, EXCUSE ME???  HELLO???  ARE YOU JOKING?  I was one of probably the most poorly catechised Catholics out there, I didn’t even know that I wasn’t really being Catholic…and yet I DID know the Church’s teaching on contraceptives and abortion.  Rather front and center stuff.  Do you propose that the Laity has no personal responsibility to KNOW AND LEARN their faith?  Far too many Catholics have never read an encyclical, I didn’t until I was post-30yrs of age, sadly.  They’re in print, they’re out there.  It wasn’t my Bishop’s fault that I didn’t avail myself of the treasure of documents published by the Church.  If you encountered a priest who was unfaithful and counseled you poorly, then he as an individual is culpable.  Don’t hang it on the Church et al.  And don’t complain because you weren’t led by the nose.  People practice willful blindness all by themselves.

Abba, Our Father God in Heaven, holy, sacred and wonderful is Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. I thank Thee for the Catholic Church and its special courage to stand up to this evil, this abomination. I pray that the Church will be soon victorious in this battle. I ask this in the name of Yeshua Christ Jesus, Your Beloved Only Begotten Son, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Are either of these men married?  Are they potential fathers some day?  Pity the mothers.  Pity the tiny newborns.

to the first comment, it is not “When is God going to help us?”  It should be “When are we going to help God?”

Great savings!  You know well how much it takes to save 30 bucks in a grocery store - you did it all at once!  And you don’t have to even worry about the IRS ethicists checking it out in your deductions (talk about folks with no brakes).

@David Carter “Mary de Voe, I’ve never met the authors, and even if I knew them well I wouldn’t feel it was up to me to judge the state of their souls.” Oh, They have souls? They have souls but they judge everybody else as having no souls? Hypocites. Have you seen the head of Medusa?

Folks, why do the heathen rage…? Let’s hope you’re individually trained and ready to accept significant leadership roles in the next phase of God’s earthly kingdom. Just as members of the new Church were the only ones ethicially, spiritually, and intellectually able to rebuild civilization after the “new world order” of the old “messianic” Roman Empire disintegrated (as a result of its hubris), God will place each Church member in a servant leadership position, tasked to participate in rebuilding and extending what we currently think of as Judeo-Christian Western Civilization when the USA and its allies culturally disintegrate—as is now clearly occurring. God bless.

This is pathetic, evil, and GROSSLY arrogant.  The irony is that all weighty matters of morality aside, they still fancy themselves social scientists, who’ve made a sober, level-headed analysis, when really they are incredibly vapid and weak in their arguments. Throwing out baseless “moral” demarcations like they have any substance is laughable (and deeply sad and offensive).  They are kidding themselves if they think they have any degree of sophistication of thought whatsoever.  This is sub-kindergarten intellectual charlatanism on parade - and even that is way too generous.  Lame to an unspeakable degree.  They are intellectual JOKES and moral dark-hearts.  Deep, deep depravity here.

The Journal of Medical Ethics Blog also put on this post to defend the publication of the above-mentioned article.
http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/02/28/liberals-are-disgusting-in-defence-of-the-publication-of-after-birth-abortion/
All other things aside, it is an infantile response to send death threats to authors of unpopular articles. The article is really more pro-life in that it draws the logic for having an abortion to the absurdity of killing newborns—much like some pro-life commercials that dramatize a young couple killing their child with a shotgun.Mp>
It’s another “slippery-slope” fallacy in line with homosexuality leading the way to beastiality.

Sounds like the guy we elected into the White House.

A big problem with the premise is that newborns have status. That is why killing a newborn is murder. Also, no laws exist or are eing proposed or even conceived outside of the ethicists that would make the killing of a newborn legal. The only way one could accept their premise and their arguments as correct is if you are against abortion and looking for another thread to pull.

“Here’s the thing - they’re right. If you accept their premises, they’re absolutely right.”

What? Even I, as a supporter of a women’s choice on the issue of abortion, see the flaw in this argument:  WHO has the right to kill a newborn?  The mother? No, its no longer part of her body. It is an independent entity. The privacy right that permits abortion is not applicable.

“It’s almost a pro-life argument in that it highlights the absurdity of the pro-abortion argument.”

And perhaps that was the point of the essay.  Its hard to know from the abstract.

Yet the pro-life/pro-choice argument is a political one, not a medical one and NOT AN ETHICAL ONE.  The essential question in the political debate is whether the state can force a woman not to terminate a pregnancy.  Whether that termination is ethical or not, the pro-choice crowd will argue that the ethical dilemma is the woman’s, not the government’s.

So this ultimate has almost nothing to do with the pro-life/pro-choice debate.

Hi,

The ROMAN catholic Cult aborted the lives of Christians who disagreed with their dogma & doctrine! They burnt them alive! They justified this brutality by saying it was the work of God to rid the world of these vermin.

The ROMAN catholic Cult showed the way to the Abortion Camps!

Here is the entire paper
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/02/22/medethics-2011-100411.full

You can read the whole thing for free, actually.. but in any case, I think most people will see the logic the other way: http://www.thingsfindothinks.com/2012/02/the-logic-of-infanticide/
As you say ‘I thank them for it’, for they’ve armed us with the fact that a foetus is a living human being with the same moral status as an infant. Most people will realise what kind of moral status infants actually have, and that we shouldn’t kill them.

I am a pro-choice atheist and I find this notion of “after birth abortion” very disturbing to say the least.  If I were not an atheist I might even describe it as Satanic.

I’m reminded of a 1917 pro-infanticide film called The Black Stork:

http://www.npr.org/programs/disability/ba_shows.dir/children.dir/highlights/bsmovsti.html

But the authors of the JME article don’t even limit themselves to disabled infants.

This would make Hitler Proud!! Why don’t we just “go for the gusto” and start eliminating anyone that someone else defines as “undesirable”?

Anyone else who thinks this is abhorrent - go check out www.waragainsttheweak.com - that sums all this up.

“Here’s the thing - they’re right. If you accept their premises, they’re absolutely right.

The second we allow ourselves to become the arbiters of who is human and who isn’t, this is the calamitous yet inevitable end. Once you say all human life is not sacred, the rest is just drawing random lines in the sand.

An ethicists job is like a magician’s. The main job of both is to distract you from the obvious. The magician uses sleight of hand to pretend to make people disappear. But when ethicists do it, people disappear for real.”

Contrary to Mr Matthew Archbold might have thought, the purpose of the ethicists’ article is to draw a principled line based on morality. Arthur Clarke had once said something like any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I guess one can also say, “Any sufficiently complex concept is indistinguishable from magic.” The
ethicists’ paradigm based on person-hood is brilliant but far from perfect. The authors are brilliant in trying bridge the gap between what people are doing or want to do and what people are supposed to do.

An ethicist can justify anything depending on his or her basic premise.  That is why people need to be taught to beware of all the mission and core standards in all institutions including religious denominations.  It was only by the grace of God that I ended up attending a Catholic nursing school where the sanctity of life was was firmly established.  Even back then over 50 years ago, there were the “Sibelius types” that were insiders trying to defy the basic tenents of Catholic ethical standards.  Always beware of sheep in wolves clothing!!!!! They walk among us every day.

I would love to know if both of these people who have written this inhuman artical, the reason why i say its inhuman is because who has the right to say anything like this about newborns to fetas in consparence to human beeing who have feels can talk walk and defend for the selfs in life.
I would all so love to know if eather one of them has had an children of there own or are think about it…....
Becasue i know and like many woman know that a new born and a fetas can determin weather or not they are in a happy state or angry state of mind, I suppose these people have done all the relevent sicence testing to this state of artical and learn while understdy like many midwifes we have around the world and would probly tell you that im right a new born and a fetas does have the same right as “actual persons”.

The only reason what i can think that would make them think that a fetas and newborn are the same and not like “actual person” is that they can not yet learn the baisc of life if yet not giving it, or unable to support them selfs at first ie with eating talking walking and feeding and all that which comes with having a child…....... as i know my self and even thou i was younge i made a dession for my sons well being and from my own understudys on my son from feats to new born and now childhood, that we are all indvuale in are own way and have are own quriks which we have from a feats in your mums womb to become a newborn then a child and so on its only as we grow from birth that we learn to a “actual persons” its the same with any kind of life from plants aniamles even down to how the earth works it dont take a GRADE A+ SMART ARSE to figure this one out, even i know its inhuman to comdem sumone to a nonlife as they see it…... and i hope that it dont get any more interste of written work on the matter at hand, i doubt they even question there own exsitence to there own right life with in this world

Many year’s ago I wrote a letter, surprisingly published, in which I suggested hiring strangular’s for every hospital, for it would be much less expensive to give mother’s a few day’s to make up their minds after birth as to whether the baby shall live than the cost and travail of an abortion. I also asked to be permitted to rob a bank, for I was facing four college educations, with the proviso that those who disapproved did not have to rob a bank.

i can’t believe this is happening ! are we as human beings falling so low ? how dare any person claim that he should kill another human being ? how the person came into being is none of your business.. yes it may be rape or any other reason.. society has no right to blame the person for coming into being and hell no right to kill him/her

these so called ethicists should be put on trial for their disgusted claims

I really wish more schools would require philosophy, logic and/or critical thinking classes as mandatory courses. By doing so, people would stop making simple reasoning mistakes, much as they have done in RESPONSE to the 2 ethicists’ argument.

Their argument is not that it is moral to abort…nor have they argued that it is moral to kill infants after birth.

Their argument is that the same reasons used for abortion (or to justify abortion, or to say that abortion is moral) can be applied post-birth. They go through each premise in detail. It’s a perfectly valid argument.

They are not arguing for the truth of the matter! Their point is not to push a global post-birth infant killing policy or change the moral value of infanticide.

Their point is showing that there is an inconsistency in the application of reasons. That if one justifies abortion based on reasons X, Y, Z, and these particular reasons are not limited to just fetus but can also be extended to infants post-birth, then there is no moral distinction.

This is a similar methodology and argument made by philosopher James Rachels years ago about the value of human life itself.

The article by Mr. Archibald, and the many responses to the original argument by the 2 ethicists completely miss the point from what appears to be either the lack of exposure to proper training in ethical philosophy (or perhaps even critical thinking)...or the emotional blinding of the real issue due to it simply being a controversial issue (abortion).

Jeremy is of course right. Which reminds me of a wonderful philosophy professor I had at THE Ohio State University back in 1985. We discussed “personhood” for the whole quarter. Robots and computers and self-awarenes. Babies in womb, babies born, parasites, etc. I still pull out his work at times. Even though I was a hedonistic, sinful, young, bad Catholic, he made me realize the slippery slope of abortion: if it is ok in the womb, it is ok outside of the womb - at any age, at any level of awareness. I only pray our children can still find his type of non-flawed reasoning.

Please do not misconstrue my above point. That is, abortion is always wrong.

Jeremy,

I’ve read through the paper with your interpretation of it in mind. You’re certainly right that they are saying that infanticide is justified in the same set of circumstances that abortion is. But they are, in addition, saying that plenty of such circumstances do exist. Specifically, they claim to justify these two positions:

“* The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus, that is, neither can be considered a ‘person’ in a morally relevant sense. * It is not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense.”

...which means, in the context, by killing her. And then at the start of the next section,

“The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”

Is it not absolutely clear that they are saying that neither fetuses nor infants have any right to life? Later in the paper they also argue that when the parents are not going to bring the child up for whatever reason, adoption is preferable to infanticide only when the mother would be less traumatized by the former. The baby’s interests do not figure at all in the equation. All that matters is the interests of “actual persons”, which are people capable of formulating aims, i.e. (most of) those over a certain age.

It seems to me you are failing to apply the key critical thinking skill of observing and accounting for what is actually there in the data, rather than what you wish was there.

Thank you David. Who defines “morally relevant”,  who defines “persons”? The ethicists, government, those with the power, those with the money. This is, in the end, the whole problem. .......“All people are equal. Some people are more equal than others.”

In the name of God, where are we heading in this world.  This is what Hitler and his evil bunch were doing maybe in a different way but murdering (not killing) murdering human being in the womb and outside the womb.  Where will the age limit stop, two (2) years old?  Where is the outrage in the media?  These people who are saying these hideous statement, I just wish there mother would have aborted them. 

I saw a video where a 2 year old chinese baby was in the street crying because someone left her there, people passed by not even looking at her, trucks ran over her legs, I could not sleep after seeing such a site, are we so hard hearted and callous (cruel disregard for others) we have no heart?  What have we become? 

Pray the Supreme Court repeals the Obamacare which in turn has no regard for human life.  Didn’t God say that he knew us before we were born?  God bless our innocent children who have done no harm to anyone except be in the womb and be born.

It seems the authors of the article under discussion here have been receiving death threats:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9117804/Abortion-article-author-receives-death-threats.html

Once you manage to convince yourself that someone is not really human, it becomes psychologically possible to contemplate killing them. You can see this dynamic at work very clearly in the article. But it applies just as much on the other side of the argument too.

I think the people who have referred to the authors of the article as if they were not human owe them an apology, as do those who have expressed violent sentiments towards them here. I’m not saying at all that they are among those who have sent death threats but it all goes to create an atmosphere which can lead to others doing so. In particular,  I think Matthew Archbold, who began this whole process here and presumably has some kind of approval from the Register to write his blog, should apologize for calling them animals in the original post. We hunt and kill animals, we factory farm them, we use them for our convenience. The implications of his choice of language are extremely unfortunate, to say the least.

Please get your religion and politics out of my uteurus.

Their conclusion is logical. I can see why you are glad they wrote it. I often wondered what the difference was between a mother who has an abortion, and the mother who throws her newborn in a garbage can and gets 10 years?  THEN society gets outraged???  Not logical.

“Please get your religion and politics out of my uterus.”

Please get the fact into your head that the baby in your uterus is another human being and is not yours to murder.

This is disgusting, but I’m hoping it’s a joke, or a way for people to realize where being “pro-choice” will lead us.

This is just one more result of post modern thought - there is no absolute truth.  Such “thinkers” must then be willing to accept a free for all where any truth will do, thank you. 

If we, as a nation, follow this calamitous path, then we will be able to justify doing anything to anybody if we think that it is a good thing to do.  Hitler believed that if you dare to tell huge lies and tell them often enough, then the masses will believe the lies.  Humans are poor students of history.  History does repeat itself, so let us usher in the middle ages again where nobody will be safe.

I once read that if “....we allow ourselves to become the arbiters of who is human and who isn’t, this is the calamitous yet inevitable end. Once you say all human life is not sacred, the rest is just drawing random lines in the sand.”

This is how the Liberals are preparing us for a Central Government run health care system in the United States. Some ethicist will then come out with a paper describing how the elderly or anyone with a religious or conservative point of view is not a “real person” but simply a “potential person” until they are educated and adopt of liberal philosophy. Watch out for “post-retirement” abortions sometime soon!

These (un)ethicists are simply following the lead of another Aussie, Peter Singer, who has a rather important chair at Princeton. His philosophy has been the basis of ethical advice to governments and companies regarding contraception, abortion, IVF, experimentation on embryos and much worse for decades. People haven’t cared till now so, even though I may be a little jaded, I doubt if anyone will care now, who isn’t already involved in peo-life.

I suspect we will see the age old head in the sand response.

I have a full copy of the article because a med student shared it with me. It is horrifying, beyond comprehension. If you want a copy, let me know. MightyLettersToUs@gmail.com

“Dr. Mengele’s Still Drumming”

See that baby in the corner?
Her life might not be so good!
I can tell she’ll be a problem…
That much, ma’am, is understood!

She’s not really quite a “person”;
Yes, we’re sure she’s unaware.
Her life may not be worth living…
Let’s “abort” and show we care.

She’s just not what we’d call “human”...
She’s not really at that stage.
“Cute” enough, but just not “with it”...
Unaware and disengaged.

She has no real moral standing…
Not just yet, and that’s the glitch!
She’s no diff’rent from a tomcat,
Or some tiny mongrel !@#$%.

We’ll decide for you what’s “human”...
When a “what” becomes a “who”!
On these shifting sands of reason,
Moral Law we may undo.

These things change, ma’am. Please don’t worry!
We know best about these things;
We’ve been schooled in Bio-Ethics,
Singing songs that Singer sings!

That’s the song of Peter Singer…
(Margaret Sanger sang it, too).
If that melody’s familiar,
Maybe you should ask the Jew.

That’s the downbeat of Eugenics,
Euthanasia’s Rhythm Band.
Dr. Mengele’s still drumming
Out there on that shifting sand.

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teaching comes through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” -The Apostle Paul (1Timothy 4: 1-2)
* * * * * * *
“[N]ew-born humans are neither persons nor quasi-persons, and their destruction is in no way intrinsically wrong.” - Dr. Michael Tooley, Professor of Ethics , University of Colorado, President of the American Philosophical Society (2011-2012)

“Human babies are not born self-aware or capable of grasping their lives over time. They are not persons. Hence their lives would seem to be no more worthy of protection than the life of a fetus. “ -Dr. Peter Singer PhD, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University

“After ruling our thoughts and our decisions about life and death for nearly two thousand years, the traditional Western ethic has collapsed.” -Dr. Peter Singer, PhD., Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University

Yo Tom Graffagnino,

The Good Old USA not only brought thousands of Nazis to America after World War II (Operation Paperclip), but they also did a deal with Japan’s Mengele:

In exchange for cooperation from the Japanese side, the horrific war crimes of Unit 731 were suppressed by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Not only were the unit’s members not prosecuted for war crimes, they were rewarded and went on to occupy prestigious positions in postwar Japan’s medical and academic communities. More recently, as in other reparations movements stemming from Japanese war conduct, Japan’s courts have played the contradictory role of validating plaintiffs’ descriptions of historical events but rejecting their claims to compensation on legal grounds.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted by Reuters on April 19, 2006, as saying: “The government is not in possession of materials that tell us about the activities of this unit. If we do find some materials, we would accept it as a solemn fact of history.” The Japanese government, then, does not currently view Dr. Ishii Shiro’s atrocious programs as historical truth. The hypocrisy is striking: the Japanese state and military destroyed the very records it now says are necessary to prove Unit 731’s actions, while the issues were covered up with American complicity.

This characteristic attitude toward its war responsibility places Japan yet again on a collision course with China regarding history. China’s Unit 731 Exhibition Hall near Harbin announced in 2005 that it would seek UNESCO World Heritage status for the main BW and medical experimentation site. Last year 200,000 people visited the state-run museum, which is undergoing major expansion and restoration. “Our goal is to build it into a world-class war memorial and educate people all over the world,” the facility’s curator said in a Washington Post article last April 7. “This is not just a Chinese concern. It is a concern of humanity.”

Since 1973, America has slaughtered 50,000,000 young Americans in its Abortion Camps, making Hitler & Stalin look like Boy Scouts:

Dr. Martin Haskell giving a presentation at the 16th Annual Meeting of the National Abortion Federation Conference in 1992 in San Diego. It was a gathering of abortionists—men and women who make their living by killing babies. Haskell was describing to his audience how to do a partial-birth abortion. Listen to his words about how this procedure takes place:
“The surgeon then introduces large grasping forceps … through the vaginal and cervical canal …  He moves the tip of the instrument carefully towards the fetal lower extremities—and pulls the extremity into the vagina …The surgeon then uses his fingers to deliver the opposite lower extremity, then the torso, the shoulders, and the upper extremities. The skull lodges in the internal os.  The fetus is oriented … spine up … The surgeon then takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand.  … the surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull—spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. The surgeon—surgeon then introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents.”
Haskell, having described these brutal details, shows his audience a video of himself doing one of these procedures. And at the end of the video, after the sound of the suction machine taking the brains out of the baby’s head, the audience applauds.

BABY BODY PARTS

Fetal tissue wholesalers are companies which place employees in abortion clinics to harvest tissue, limbs, organs, etc. from aborted babies. This material is then shipped to researchers working for universities, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies. Although it is against federal law to sell human tissue or body parts, these organizations have devised a system to circumvent this restriction. Technically, all fetal material they harvest is “donated” to them by the clinics. However, they do pay a “site fee” to the clinics for the right to access the tissue. The tissue is then “donated” to the researchers who in turn pay the wholesalers for the cost of retrieval. Profit is realized by the wholesalers’ ability to set their own retrieval fees.

An arguement for post-birth abortion is irrelevant in America as it is against the constitution which enshrines our God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Judeo-Christian principles do not support the taking of life and while there is a debate regarding when the fetus becomes a person, after birth there is no question.  Granted Pres Obama, in taking away the conscience clause, is moving in the direction of State vice God given rights at which point this atrocity of post-birth abortion could become a movement in the U.S.

This illustrates the slippery moral slope that western societies chose as they “one by one” chose to legalize abortion (in the U.S. of course, in 1973). As both a clinician and oftimes professor of developmental psychology coursework I have on this issue argued (sarcastically) that the right to abortion/infanticide should be extended at least up the first year of age. This system could allow a couple to truly make an “informed” decision and decide if a child did not impede their lifestyles and/or career plans too severely. It would be no different that euthanizing a beloved pet to save the pet from “suffering”. Developmentally, a newborn is just as dependent on the constant-direct care of their parent(s) as they where for previous in-utero months. Why are newborns protected? Because it is in our biological nature to bond with them and when they are merely an embryo or a fetus we can terminate them anonymously, diffusing our responsibility and rationalizing our “choices”.

@Ryan Peters, you wrote “I, for example, used to support Intelligent Design being taught in public schools, but then I read some books by Catholic biologist “Kenneth R. Miller” who explained how it’s premise is distinctly unscientific by nature.” 

I recommend you read Signature In the Cell by Dr. Steven C. Meyer. Very informative, and might shed some more light for you on that topic.

Regarding infanticide, pretty much been summed up in all the other comments…

while i pray at the abortion mills i close my eyes , les they see condemnation in them . i think america is at a crossroads in regards to our future .we can re-elect someone who tramples on anyones rights in his atempt to level the playing field , but does not want to be held acountable for his actions . we have at least one candidate who is willing to stand up to the withering ripposts that his ethical stand has brought him . yet suprisingly enough a majority of those who say they profess the same ideals refuse to vote for him . which has in many cases cost a favorable result in some state ballot tallies . we must not only pray for our emenies ,but also work to help our society to return to its moral foundations.  just a quick - if europe defaults then the usa will be under great pressure which might catapult us into the same financial maelstrom . if that happens then there will be fewer jobs and more reliance on government help . obama care has some rules - you must have a chip to get healthcare . if you are old your worthiness for life will be decided by a panel of experts.if we have economic downturn then there might not be enough money to buy that course of anti-biotic to stop that infection . ect cardinal dolan is in need of prays that the bishops will stand in support of him and agaist the detruction of the right of freedom of religion for all.

Maybe the executions should start with these delusional “ethicists”. They are wasting valuable natural resources and are contributing to excess greenhouse gases just by their very act of living. I have as much right to decide who lives and dies as they do, according to their logic.

It is very ‘funny’ (not humor, just odd) that these so-called ethicists use “self-awareness” as the hallmark of humanity, when it is obvious that it is the “awareness of others” that is the true mark.  But then, they know that if they argued for this standard they would fail it themselves.

I read an article about this last week and my heart just shattered into a million pieces and I could not stop trembling for a half an hour. I just held my sweet infant boy in my arms and sobbed. I never truly believed in evil until that moment. Please God protect us from these people gaining absolute power.

You can read the article for free at the Journal of Medical Ethics website.

There is no such notion as “Post Birth Abortion”, in English or in any human language. 

<Abortion> is the word used to make the destruction of the Life of the unborn human being not seem like such a crime.  Whatever anyone wants it to seem, it is the killing of a human being.  That is all there is to it: the killing of a human being made by God in the Image Of GOD.  Nothing more.

The killing of a human being after birth is named a killing, albeit in latin etymology, to make it sound like different crime:  <neonaticide> if done within 24 hours from birth; <infanticide> if committed between 24 hours and one year.  Whatever anyone may try to make it seem, it is nothing more than said above: destroying the life of a human being whom God had created and made in the Image of God.  That’s all. 

So you see, there is no such notion as “Post Birth Abortion” in any human language, because abortion is the ending of the life of the UNborn.  By the way, for those who talk real: the ending of the life of the unborn is known as <feticide> = the killing of the fetus. Or, in plain English: the killing of the innocent and pure, defenseless Light called into the material world through the deliberate act of procreation by two grown, responsible human beings.  Who had once been made in the Image of God, by God Himself.

Whoever does not have a notion of God, won’t have a notion of His Image. 

Please pray that more and more people will unite to eradicate abortion and infanticide by uprooting and destroying all causes of such crimes.  Through awakening of Heart and Soul in the Name of Jesus Christ.  Amen

Hople

No one has the right to kill another. The killing of children especially those under 3 years old should be stopped. Life should be defended. So why are the armies of the world sitting on their hands as female children are abandoned at birth in the streets of asia. Im sick of this world and its stupidity. The people should rise-up and move to Africa and make a new world.

These are not Ethicists. They’re Eugenisists posing as Ethicists.  And who were the biggest supporters of Eugenics in the world? I’ll give you a hint: We fought them in WWII.

In conclusion: The article in discussion had been withdrawn from its hosting website.  This coincided with coauthor Francesca Minerva’s receiving death threats.  [Perchance this had brought to her brilliantly intellectual, right-to-life-bestowing academic mind the simple fact of her having been a fetus, and a vulnerable infant herself; that now, ontologically, she is the result of having been, as she likes to say,  “a potential person”, cared for and educated by her parents, so that she gained “self awareness”—which, according to Mr Stephen Adams’ article, had, most recently manifested by her feeling <“the worst in my life”> (probable meaning: fear of death)—and this “self awareness” had transformed her (in her own eyes, I mean) into an “actual person”.  The positive might be that Ms Minerva may have found out what it means to be that vulnerable, threatened, helpless … babe.  In spite of the two obvious essential differences: the baby has no fear of death, because its soul is still with God, aware only of God; and the baby is innocent, thus deserving neither threats, nor ill-fated “debates”, nor the perpetration of such as the ones expressed in the above-mentioned article. 
The disappointing fact is that Mr Alberto Giubilini has authored other, clearly and unequivocally pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia papers.  And Ms Minerva is in tune with him.  So no, let’s face it: the authors’ intention had not been to “oppose abortion”.  Some things are really what they seem, and one of these is the article in discussion.
But, contrary to their intentions, the authors succeeded in de-masking abortion for what it really is, and in alerting the public to the crimes of feticide and infanticide.  And public information is the logical first step to action for the eradication of these barbaric practices. 
The irony is that both authors reside in Australia, where everyone has seen mammalian fetuses: who has not seen one in the marsupium of a pet kangaroo?  The fetus is a real individual who knows what it does.  Take a look:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo#Reproduction_and_life_cycle .
And if the kangaroo joey knows at 33 days and an inch or so in length, to climb out of the uterus and, nimbly up, through mom’s fur, into the pouch where he finds the nipple at the first try—all in only 5 minutes, then why doubt the intelligence of the 33 day human fetus, only because it is away from sight, behind the abdominal wall?? 
Hey, Sandra, have they ever heard, or has anyone, of any marsupial mammal ever picking out the joey from her pouch and throwing him to the rats??  Yet the superior human being would rake the woman’s innards, traumatizing her in body, heart, mind and soul to the point of no return, to kill her offspring and throw him in the sewer.  Or have its earthly remains packed in a sterilized container and sold to the cosmetic industry, or some other cannibalistic enterprise. 
Yes, I am afraid, friend Matthew Archbold, we humans should apologize to the animal kingdom for insulting their kind by comparing our morals to theirs.
Returning to Ms Minerva: why would “self awareness” make a person more “actual” than the next, is not quite clear to me.  I say with Mary De Voe: “Personhood is endowed by our Creator as part of the immortal soul”.  And I am with all who say that awareness of the neighbor, and first and foremost: awareness of God, define the value of the human being.  Yet even if this awareness be blighted, as in the case of Ms Minerva and Mr Giubilini, I am sure I am in tune with most posters on this side of the blog: these famous authors, their editors and sponsors, as well as most of those who might share their distorted views, for not having yet gained true awareness of God, are still human beings: they still have latent the God-given potential to develop awareness and rise their consciousness to God, our and all babies’ patient, Loving Father.  All they need is to receive God’s Answer to our prayer.  If we bother to prey for them.  Should we?

If we sit back and look at out world with a detached attitude, it is easy to see that human behavior is becoming consistent with the psychology of overcrowding.  Stress, fear, loss of perspective.  What’s the solution?  Self control.  Redirect all that erratic attention back to God.  All of us together.  Yes: it’s more of us.  The more of us gather in the Name of Jesus Christ, the more likely we are to Receive His Blessings. 

@Chris: yes, me too. But in Africa they still use children as “soldiers”.  Wherever we turn, education is lacking and child-abuse is rampant.  All this needs reparation.  There is work to do.  Ministry and education and healing.  Besides, I pray to God He inspire the govt to redirect all “planned parenthood” funds to the space program.  Then, they’ll need work-force there.  Highly educated work-force.  They better redirect the govt expansion funds to education.  I don’t know about you, but I find making other planets inhabitable for humans, closer to the Plan of God than killing His children.  I suppose the Catholic (meaning “greater than Universal” in Greek) Church ought to prepare, to be the first one ready for that kind of ministry. 

I hear you Sally, Feb 27: they are not ready for the pristine yet.  Sac-cloth and ashes.  Yes, fasting and prayer brings us people closer to God.  Fact is: the way we humans are now, we are dangerous to God’s creation—we prove it every day.  So we have the clergy we deserve.

Also: why would God permit us humans to populate His asters?  To spread our pollution in the universe?  Without God we make no sense.  Without God we won’t be able to.  Without God there’ll be more of Challenger and Columbia.  Their crews had been aborted from planet earth by the godless anti-Christian NASA administration.  Looking at what had been going on, in the last few decades, it sums up like this: <<Hi NASA, here’s a proposition to self destruct.  Aye or nay?  Unanimously voted in favor.  We now adjourn.  Sweet dreams to yall. >>  To this day crews have minimal access and no say about the condition of space-craft in which they are propelled off the planet.  So they should at least pray more.  Whatever thy did, God was on their side, showed the engineers and admins so clearly the Challenger should not be launched with the broken o-ring!  If the space program does not look at God for guidance, it’s a waste of taxpayer’s money.  How can it be done in the conjecture of the separation of church and state?  A bit of each citizen’s tax financed the loss of those crews’ lives.  We are all responsible.  Yet how can the state get reconciled with the institution of the church, as long as the latter lags in relating with God?

I look at federal and state tax as mega-tithing for the purpose of collectively accomplishing the GoodWill of God.  If it is used for anything contrary to Good, they misused it against my will.  Yet I am responsible.  We the people are responsible for how our taxes are used.  If we look at it this way, we do better and pray stronger.   

As far as the the true awareness of the human being is concerned, we have the evidence: Elisabeth received the Holy Spirit through her son John—a six month fetus—about Christ Jesus who had come under the Virgin’s heart the other day.  (Luke 1:41): when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.

@TheGovtIsNuts: thank you for taking us with you in prayer to

Abba, Our Father God in Heaven, holy, sacred and wonderful is Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. I thank Thee for the Catholic Church and its special courage to stand up to this evil, this abomination. I pray that the Church will be soon victorious in this battle. I ask this in the name of Yeshua Christ Jesus, Your Beloved Only Begotten Son, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

I know men have their faults & feminists are quick to point them out.

I always thought women were the nurturing ones until I read of the 50,000,000 babies they PAID to have slaughtered in Abortion Camps in America since 1973. I wonder what the true count is for the world. I know that most women in Russia have between 4 to 8 abortions, so it must be astronomical.

Yet, we NEVER equate it with Hitler or Stalin. WHY?

* JEWS AND THE ABORTION INDUSTRY *

“Who drives the abortion industry in the United States? Want to hazard a guess? If you said that the main movers and shakers behind the pro-abortion movement in the U.S. are Jews, you win the grand prize.

While there are, of course, some pro-life Jews who are disturbed by the abortion rates in both the United States and Israel, I would venture to say that they are certainly in the minority, especially in the U.S. Their low regard for Gentile life at any stage of development is reflected in the number of abortions performed by Jewish doctors (about half of all abortion providers are Jewish) in Jewish owned “women’s clinics” (about a half of all such clinics are owned by Jews) which is way out of proportion when you consider what a small percentage of our population Jews comprise.

Various people have commented publicly about the disproportionate number of Jews in the abortion rights movement. For instance, Kenneth Mitzner, founder of an organization entitled The Pro-life League Against Neo-Hitlerism said:

First, let’s take a look at the Jewish Talmudic view on abortion. The Mishnah, comprising the first part of the Talmud, provides a source for understanding the Jewish position which assumes that life arises only at birth which is when they believe that ensoulment takes place. So long as the fetus, or the most important part of it, its head, has not come out into the world, it is not called nefresh (a human soul) and therefore an unborn fetus is not to be considered a living being until birth.

“It is tragic but demonstrably true that most of the leaders of the pro-abortion movement are of Jewish extraction.”

The old testament, in Exodus 21:22-23 shows us that the Jews did not regard unborn lives as human beings as reflected in the laws during that period:

“If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

Literally and by interpretation, this passage poses the basic legal principal that the destruction of the fetus is not to be considered punishable murder. Death of the unborn child is punishable by fine only, and capital punishment does not apply. Only if the mother is harmed, i.e. killed, does the law of capital punishment take effect.

Clearly, the Jewish Talmudic view on abortion is a disturbing one since if a fetus is not considered a living being until birth it can only mean that Jews would have no problem with abortion at any stage of gestation for any reason, up until birth. It is unarguable that a fetus is a living being and it is abhorrent to think that pro-abortion Jews would be fine with the destruction of a healthy, viable fetus no matter how late in pregnancy the abortion would take place.

Abortion has pretty wide support among Jews in this country and various Jewish organizations in the U.S. are openly and unashamedly pro abortion, organizations such as:

American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Congress
B’nai B’rith Women
Central Conference of American Rabbis [Reform]
Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations
Hadassah Women
Jewish Labor Committee
Na’amat USA
National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods [Reform]
National Council of Jewish Women
New Jewish Agenda
North American Temple Youth
Rabbinical Assembly Union of American Hebrew Congregations [Reform]
United Synagogues of America [Conservative]
Women’s League for Conservative Judaism

I’m not sure exactly why but this web site is loading very slow for me. Is anyone else having this issue or is it a problem on my end? I’ll check back later on and see if the problem still exists.

For those of you who think that people should kill there children simply because they don’t want them, cant afford them or just think im not ready I think you should lead by example, and Kill you family member first to show your commitment to this cause! If you think their are to many people in this world then lead by example, kill yourself! Stop asking other to die so that you can enjoy your life!
What im saying is I don’t need anyone to decide for me, I don’t need anyone especially scientists who are historically wrong all the time that my child at a certain age is not a human being. We are all born with right and wrong and if you don’t see this as wrong then I pray for you because you are seriously confused. You don’t have the right to take a life or to decide for me. If you decide to terminate a pregnancy that’s between you and god. I don’t think there should even be a discussion or the attempt of a law being passed that says anything to the contrary. The way things are going its very possible that one day they will come to you and tell you that even though this is your first child and we know that you want to keep it, that we’re going to terminate your pregnancy simply because you don’t quite meet our standards. Mark my words.