Ethical Murder

Oxford medical ethicists announced today that newborn babies do not have a right to life and should not be considered persons in the normal sense of the word. These inhuman elitists declare that parents should have a right to an "after-birth abortion" if their newborn is not to their liking! Such notions have been hinted at by a few fringe thinkers, but today's pronouncements unveil the anti-life, dehumanizing agenda of the elites that want their version of scientism to overrule millennia-old ethical principles. As the left caricatures Santorum and other Republicans as anti-contraception and the oppressors of women (ignoring freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed by the Constitution), this dystopian vision is obscured by shrill demands for freedom, choice and government subsidies for any and all medical procedures.

What kind of world are we in when Catholic health care providers are forced to violate their faith, while governments pay for sex-change operations for prisoners? What perverted notions of family lead us to abortion-on-demand without parental approval? Roe v. Wade has deprived our nation of 54,000,000 people. What happened to welcoming children as our beloved hope of the future?

There are no "good old days" and our compassion and knowledge of the complexities of human identity are important. We must not prosecute adults for consensual, private behavior. At the same time, we must not force people of deep convictions to celebrate activity they disagree with. We must live with our deepest differences and continue to understand all that makes us fully human.

Today's pronouncement by these "ethicists" crosses a line and must be universally condemned. If we allow any form of infanticide we are opening the door to a nightmare of inhuman and totalitarian behaviors. Why should we pay for the care of an imperfect child at all if they are not really "persons"? Who decides which babies live or die? Mom? Dad? Both? What about a "woman's right to choose" once the baby in completely out of the birth canal? If the government is paying for care, what is to prevent budgetary considerations from compelling many "after-birth abortions"? At the other end of the spectrum, why not actively rid our world of "unproductive" aged or infirm adults?

I am pro-life, from conception to coronation and every point in between. A Judeo-Christian ethos places equal, eternal value on every human being because s/he is created in God's image as a unique being. People can disagree about the technicalities of when life begins, but from conception we have the reality of a human. Even if one wants to allow for abortion in special cases or argue about personhood during gestation, no reasonable person can say that a newborn is not a human being! We are reverting to the horrific practices of ancient Greece and Rome as unwanted (mostly female) babies were left exposed to die. How can one be pro-choice while condemning gender-specific abortions? Radical activists face a moral conundrum. If the individual has absolute sovereignty over the death or life of her child, then she cannot be condemned for keeping one gender while aborting another. Yet activists in many countries, after winning abortion rights, are now bemoaning "femicide" as little girls are aborted in larger number than little boys.

The response to today's declarations must be absolute, universal condemnation, regardless of political or religious affiliations. If we open the door to killing the unfit and/or the unwanted, no one is safe.