For the umpteenth time, abortion defenders have had to vote down the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. How can we get past the idea that we should treat infants who survive abortion as human beings with human rights?
There are several good proposals out there.
Australian ethicists Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, writing in The Journal of Medical Ethics, propose changing the term “infanticide” to “after-birth abortion.” They write, “We argue that, when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible … We propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide.’”
Problem solved! By simply changing the names of things, we change the ethics of them. They conclude, “[T]he moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be.”
Others who focus on ethics—the actual study of right and wrong—concur. In Rethinking Life and Death, Princeton professor Peter Singer assures us that because infants have only infant capacities, they may be human, but they are not persons. Killing the newborn is not wrong then, any more than killing a fish. Singer writes, “Since neither a newborn infant nor a fish is a person, the wrongness of killing such beings is not as great as the wrongness of killing a person.”
No doubt this new morality will make the practice of infanticide, oops, I mean, after-birth abortion more acceptable to a squeamish population that has learned to swallow abortion but not infanticide. And if “killing the newborn” to use their language, is not the same as killing a human, and if the newborn is a non-person, comparable to a fish, then I have a modest proposal. Let us digest this new morality with spicy, lemon-pepper, or honey-barbecue options. After all, if it’s not wrong to place fish over the fire and eat it, how can it be wrong to roast a newborn non-person and season it to taste?
I am not the first to think pragmatically about this. In 1729, faced with “unwanted” children that people could not afford to feed, Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal: For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public.”
He suggested we cook them and solve both social problems—poverty and hunger together. “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee.”
To facilitate this practice, we need only revive the ancient practices of the Canaanites and renew sales of the “fireplace” or “roaster” that they called a Tophet. The Roman historian Diodorus provides us with an excellent description of this roaster and how it was used with humans that are not in any way persons. “There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus [Ba’al] extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.”
It’s true that for centuries, such actions have been unthinkable—a true abomination. The prophet Ezekiel says that the word of the Lord came saying, “And you took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols” (16:20-21).
But if we can remember that what has long been called evil should now be called good, and that human rights actually mean personal rights for those who show sufficient capacity, then all that is left to redefine is the concept of equal rights. It now must mean that some humans, I mean persons, are more equal than others.
As Mary Elizabeth Williams on Salon.com explains:
Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about … Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.
To advance my modest proposal, I would further propose that we rename “abortion” as “pre-birth infanticide.” This will certainly discourage the practice, since infanticide is a negative word implying that an innocent human being is being intentionally killed. Calling abortion “pre-birth infanticide” might lead to more “post-birth abortion” and thus provide more opportunities for us all to digest the new morality.
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