"Pushing Infanticide"

I am still taken aback by the Hastings Center Report publishing a pro infanticide article—bringing that agenda into the heart of the bioethics mainstream. As is my wont, I wrote about it. This is a piece just published in the Center for Bioethics and the Culture’s weekly newsletter. Here is an excerpt:

The article assumes that guidelines will protect against abuse, but infanticide is by definition abuse. Moreover, even if undertaken in good faith, Dutch euthanasia guidelines for adults and teenagers have continually been violated without legal consequence for decades, and so why would any rational observer expect anything different from infanticide regulations? Even the authors understand that mistakes will happen and, typical of the mindset, assume that if murder of the helpless is committed in front of an open window it is somehow more acceptable:

Determining in an instant case whether the protocol is applicable will always require judgment, and because the stakes are inordinately high no matter what is decided, the judgment must be made with fear and trembling. That said, however, we believe that transparency in the deliberations concerning the ending of an infant’s life—which is just as important as it is in the deliberations concerning euthanasia in adults—is adequately promoted by the protocol’s requirements.

It wasn’t many years ago that almost everyone accepted that infanticide is intrinsically and inherently wrong. Clearly, this is no longer true. With growth of personhood theory that denies the intrinsic value of human life, and with the invidiously discriminatory “quality of life” ethic permeating the highest levels of the medical and bioethical thinking, we are moving toward a medical system in which babies are put down like dogs and killing is redefined as a caring act. But bigotry is bigotry and murder is murder—even if you spell it c.o.m.p.a.s.s.i.o.n.