This one looks likely to run:
One of British medicine’s most senior advisers on medical ethics has provoked outrage by claiming that infanticide is “justifiable”.
Professor John Harris, a member of the British Medical Association’s ethics committee, said that it was not “plausible to think that there is any moral change that occurs during the journey down the birth canal” – suggesting that there was no moral difference between aborting a foetus and killing a baby.
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“I don’t think infanticide is always unjustifiable. I don’t think it is plausible to think that there is any moral change that occurs during the journey down the birth canal.”
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“People who think there is a difference between infanticide and late abortion have to ask the question: what has happened to the foetus in the time it takes to pass down the birth canal and into the world which changes its moral status? I don’t think anything has happened in that time.
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“There is a very widespread and accepted practice of infanticide in most countries. We ought to be much more upfront about the ethics of all of this and ask ourselves the serious question: what do we really think is different between newborns and late foetuses?“There is no obvious reason why one should think differently, from an ethical point of view, about a foetus when it’s outside the womb rather than when it’s inside the womb.”
This can’t be the whole argument, since if it were it could just be run in reverse to show why abortion is wrong – which John plainly doesn’t think it is. So, then, is the rest of the argument that a just-born baby, like a foetus, isn’t yet a person? But that’s true of all just-born babies, not only those with ‘serious abnormalities’. And it’s true also of all babies even after some weeks of life. I propose no quick answers here. But more argument is needed than is reported. I know John Harris and I’m confident he has more, though I’ll reserve judgement on whether it’s persuasive. (Hat tip: Franco Aleman.)