The Culture of Death Marches On: What’s Next?

Photo: Dreamstime.com

An article by Jonah Goldberg (“The Pro-life, Pro-Infanticide Consensus”)* at National Review Online alerted me to an article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics (“After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”) that claims that killing newborn babies, whatever their condition, can be justified, since newborns are “morally irrelevant” and “have no moral right to life.” He cites an article (“Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say”) in the Telegraph (U.K.) that quotes and links to the journal article. The so-called “ethicists” who wrote the article are Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

The journal article abstract reads as follows:

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 authors call this kind of murder “after-birth abortion” rather than “infanticide.”

They “show” the moral irrelevance of newborns mainly by stating it. You can read the article to see that they do not support it with any argument that would convince anyone other than the most hardened abortion advocates. Yet to get this kind of drivel out there in a supposedly respected journal opens the door to wider consideration by people of borderline morality.

Goldberg says, “Now, my hunch is that for the vast majority of the civilized — and, frankly, uncivilized — world, the only thing these authors have demonstrated is their own ‘moral irrelevance.’”

This kind of thing could find a ready audience among Nazi war criminals, but if it achieves any level of acceptance in the “civilized” world, it is a disturbing and frightening development. Yet in the culture of death preferred by leftists, it should be shocking even if not surprising. Most people would object to killing a puppy, let alone a newborn baby.

The “slippery slope” of abortion which Goldberg mentions, indeed leads to infanticide as anti-abortion advocates warned, and as liberals said it wouldn’t.

We are on that slippery slope, and the sliding is starting to accelerate. Infanticide is a fact of life in many hospitals today, generally passive, and with attempted justification by some terrible condition of the infant.  This paper recommends a further step by not considering the health of the infant.

It might be claimed that someone is harmed because she is prevented from becoming a person capable of appreciating her own being alive. Thus, for example, one might say that we would have been harmed if our mothers had chosen to have an abortion while they were pregnant with us or if they had killed us as soon as we were born. However, whereas you can benefit someone by bringing her into existence (if her life is worth living), it makes no sense to say that someone is harmed by being prevented from becoming an actual person. The reason is that, by virtue of our definition of the concept of ‘harm’ in the previous section, in order for a harm to occur, it is necessary that someone is in the condition of experiencing that harm.

If a potential person, like a fetus and a newborn, does not become an actual person, like you and us, then there is neither an actual nor a future person who can be harmed, which means that there is no harm at all. So, if you ask one of us if we would have been harmed, had our parents decided to kill us when we were fetuses or newborns, our answer is ‘no’, because they would have harmed someone who does not exist (the ‘us’ whom you are asking the question), which means no one. And if no one is harmed, then no harm occurred.  [Emphasis added]

This so-called argument assumes that killing a newborn (or a fetus) does them no harm, nor does it do anyone else any harm. It is hard to imagine a more false argument. Fetuses and newborns definitely feel pain. They are harmed by their loss of life, as any murder victim would be. They are persons, like it or not. The parent who authorizes such a murder then incurs serious guilt which is not easily dealt with. All this, not to mention the horrifying spiritual consequences. But in one’s ivory-tower office, perhaps it’s easy to imagine oneself playing God.

Leftism in the West has become a secular religion, one that demands human sacrifices. Many millions of abortions, of which a very small percentage involved rape, incest, or life of the mother, have been performed, depriving the world of people we’ll never know.

Abortion is the cultural cancer eating away at civilization and spreading into other forms of death: “voluntary” euthanasia that soon progresses to murder, devaluation of little life that leads in due course to child abuse, sexualization of children and other evils. What next? “Ethicists” recommending cannibalism?

In ancient days, the Israelites had as neighbors some tribes that sacrificed their children by fire to the idol Molech. The Israelites were sternly warned to have nothing to do with those people, but some got involved with this evil practice.

Leftism involves the strong denunciation of Judeo-Christian morality, which we see happening increasingly in American society. As G. K. Chesterton pointed out, when people give up believing in God, they won’t simply believe in nothing; far worse, they’ll believe in anything.

If a newborn’s life (or a fetus’s) is so inconsequential that it may be destroyed at will, where is the boundary? Wherever it is, it is soon to fall if these “ethicists’” thinking is given acceptance. May God help us to restore sanity and order to our civilization.

* * *

*Goldberg notes that while pro-life and pro-infanticide views are polar opposites, they agree that killing a fetus is morally like killing a baby.

Related articles

• Oxford Academic Promotes Killing Newborn Babies (danellacampbell.wordpress.com)
• Legalize Infanticide? Another Reason To End Abortion (littlebytesnews.blogspot.com)
• In Other News: Ethicists' Babies are Surprisingly Well-Behaved (thecynicalchristian.blogspot.com)
• Medical Ethics and The Broken Window Fallacy (thepatriotperspective.wordpress.com)

“Progressive” Government Is Still the Problem

It’s remarkable how Ronald Reagan’s words apply today as when he spoke them at his inauguration January 20, 1981, and had previously expressed the same idea in his GOP Convention speech in 1964:



The issue is much the same today as it has been throughout American history, especially since the beginning of the twentieth century: the size and power of the federal government. This encompasses many social and economic issues. As far back as the Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist controversies, this issue has been discussed and debated. But even the Federalists, who favored a stronger central government than did the Anti-Federalists, still wanted the government confined to its constitutional limits. They disagreed on the legal mechanisms for accomplishing this.

In the twentieth century, President Woodrow Wilson, an authoritarian ruler, used World War I as an excuse to impose a near-totalitarian administration on America. He was an example of the Progressive movement. Harding and Coolidge represented a much-needed respite from the Wilson tyranny, but soon Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt continued the statist ways, without helping the situation during the state-caused Great Depression.

Liberals today often prefer the term “Progressive,” probably hoping most people won’t know what it means. Historically the Progressives have been in favor of activist government placing “experts” in charge of making decisions for the people that they traditionally have made for themselves. Progressives have been responsible for many developments, some good and some bad.

Progressives attacked the abuses prevalent in some parts of society in business and industry, and strove to improve treatment of people on the lower end of the socio-economic scale. In doing this, they used the press and literature to call attention to outstanding problems, and succeeded in getting many improvements made. They also planted the seeds for the permanent welfare state, eventually creating a permanent dependent underclass that is useful as a source of votes.

Human nature is such that man is prone to yield to temptations to mistreat others and to abuse people and laws for his own benefit. Government had participated in private-sector abuses by passing laws favorable to the robber-baron types. Yet it is a mistake to assume that all wealthy industrialists were equally guilty. From the Progressives’ actions came the growth of labor unions, who soon enough installed abuses of their own when they could get government to side with them.

Progressives in the 1920’s were often admirers of Benito Mussolini, and his seeming success in organizing society through the State. Everyone had to participate in the great fascist program (at the expense of their own self interest) or else. They often also tended to admire the Soviet Union, seeing collectivism as the “wave of the future.” For a discussion of the Progressives’ political similarities with major socialist movements see Jonah Goldberg’s video here, as he discusses his book Liberal Fascism, which I highly recommend.

Progressives also promoted the eugenics movement, hoping to weed out undesirable specimens from society. This they did by getting laws passed to allow involuntary sterilization of individuals deemed less fit. This process appears to have been stopped in the U.S., but has been replaced by the far worse phenomenon of abortion. We haven’t got to forced abortions yet, but there is some pressure in that direction. See eugenics video here.

Today, Progressives are about to get the power to tell every American what kind of medical insurance and care he/she can get and can’t get, how much it will cost, who pays, etc. In addition to the great loss of liberty this would bring, the Right to Life movement is rightly concerned that government will fund abortions and that end-of-life care will contribute to ending lives. Since this happens in other supposedly civilized countries, it is not entirely unlikely to happen here. Most Americans oppose this takeover, but, apparently, raw political power will prevail.

Progressives have also bought into (concocted?) the notion that global warming (or, climate change, if you prefer) is an issue that must be dealt with on a grand scale by government, at great expense. The best and brightest plans that have been suggested will not change the climate to any significant extent, and worldwide cooperation is simply not going to happen. The whole idea is not really related to climate, but rather, is an attempt to shake down wealthier nations, particularly the United States, to transfer wealth to the thugs and tyrants of the third world. It is showing some success in that. Also, it would give the Progressive “experts” more areas of control over citizens’ everyday lives.

Progressivism works politically through defining “victims” and going after people and institutions that have wealth and economic power, using, for example, Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and similar methods that are commonly used by communist agitators, such as demonizing the opponent, repeating a big lie loudly and frequently so that people begin to believe it, and other techniques, for example, suggesting that the opponent is mentally ill or otherwise unsound, or of such character as not to be believed. Debating or otherwise engaging on the issues is to be avoided.

Progressives today also work through community organizers in such groups as ACORN that are not above breaking laws to achieve their goals.

Progressivism is firmly in place in the White House and the Congressional majority. Its appeal consists of promises to “victim” groups of government help in exchange for votes, and, for liberals who are not “victims,” promises of political or bureaucratic jobs to carry out their programs, and thereby feel good about themselves and exercise power. Everyone is entitled to government help, they say. It’s a right, they say. We can see the results of the welfare state economy all around us. It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. But good intentions are what we’re supposed to evaluate, not results.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” and politically and economically, that’s the road we’re currently on. It could be avoided largely by undoing and not doing what Progressives are doing these days.


Photo: Portrait of President Woodrow Wilson