Forgetting the Lessons of History: The Push For Eugenic Infanticide Marches On
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology is calling for society to permit eugenic infanticide. The problem, according to these "ethicists" is that some very disabled babies survive. We can't have that. "A very disabled child can mean a disabled family," the report urges. And this might prevent abortions (!!) because parents would be willing to see a difficult pregnancy through in the knowledge that if it doesn't turn out well, they always have the option of a post birth abortion.
Apparently a bioethics think tank is looking into the issue. Oh joy. Maybe they'll recommend that the babies be used in medical experiments and organ harvesting since they are going to be thrown out anyway.
Of course, the Dutch have leapt to support the idea. According to two studies in the Lancet, neonatologists and pediatricians already kill about 8% of all infants who die in the Netherlands,a sorry figure that another Lancet study shows that Flanders now equals.
Doctors and bioethicists are reviving the concept of life unworthy of life. Oh, they don't term it so crassly. But what we say isn't what counts: It is what we do. How fast people who should know better have forgotten the lessons of history.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 6:44 AM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
I wish I could be sure you're right, Deep Toad. When the news came out about the Groningen Protocol, the only people making a fuss that I saw were pro-lifers, most of them Christian. The rest of the world seemed to say, "Ho, hum."
I want to point out here that the way things are run in England, if this is introduced it will certainly be done without and even against parents' wishes. Not that it would make it right if the parents consented, but we will certainly see horribly distressed parents begging that their children not be euthanized, and everybody yelling about how "selfish" these parents are to want to spend "our money" (there's that phrase again) to "keep their babies alive." Charlotte Wyatt would have been a likely candidate for this sort of thing, as all the experts said that she would be in pain all her life, etc. She's proved them wrong, but we don't hear much, "Gee, I was wrong," from that quarter. In fact, despite the fact that she is now in no pain, has had her third birthday, and survives with only a feeding tube (though she also eats by mouth) and oxygen nasal canula (no ventilator required), whenever she gets a cold they rush to have the judge revive the DNR order on her and start referring to her as "terminally ill." She's been "terminally ill" for three years now and going strong, but they won't drop the label until she's dead, whenever that happens to be. About the only nice thing I can find to say about the medical establishment in the UK vis a vis Charlotte is that at least they haven't pushed to withdraw her nutrition and hydration--that I know of.
But the point is that all of this is much against her parents' wishes, yet in the UK there are no qualms about that. "Doctor knows best" is the motto, and the legal establishment is strongly on the side of the NHS. That is very significant when we start talking about active euthanasia.
The problem, or, I should say ONE problem--we have many--is that people confuse pity with compassion. Compassion's root meaning is to "suffer with." Infanticide discards.
Reading the RCOG letter, it appears that they were more concerned about protecting abortion than anything else and their solution was to support killing the child after birth, as well as before.
I'm in no way arguing for the eugenics program, but I read through the linked article and a question arose -
Are you in favor of withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment? And if so, what is the distinction between that and not doing everything possible to sustain the life a baby who would die otherwise?
I understand the distinction between taking a positive step to kill and passively allowing nature to take its course. But isn't the passive form a form of eugenics? Do we have the same moral impulse to override the parents wishes and sustain the life?
I am in favor of the right to withdraw life-sustaining treatment under certain circumstances. As the US Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in Vacco v. Quill, there is a huge difference between being killed and dying a natural death. Besides, unless it is food or water, sometimes removing life sustaining treatment does not result in the death of the patient. Lethally injecting these babies is to kill them.
I agree, lethal injection is killing, but withholding LST (life-sustaining treatment) could get us to the same eugenics result. The difference being one of proximate cause.
Or, let me put it this way, if parents decide the healthcare of their children, what would be the difference between a legitimate LST withdraw and criminal neglect of medicine?
Sometimes there isn't. It is a case by case thing.
We spoke with Senator Rick Santorum about his son Gabriel who died with in hours or a day after birth. His wife has written a book on it, Letters to Gabriel. He was a lead supporter of the partial birth abortion ban. We asked him about arguments that said we should abort children we knew would live short lives and suffer like his Gabriel. The Senator, who stands to lose re-election today, asked us why it would matter how long his son lived or what condition he arrived in. He said he loves little Gabriel today and that he learned more from watching Gabriel struggle for his life than he had learned from anybody. He then asked us about his other kids. He had a 9 or 11 year old. What if he should die tomorrow? What if I knew before birth that he would die at 10, 20 or 30? What difference would that make? What difference does the length of anyone's life make? Should we kill them ahead of time?
I think there's a stark spiritual contrast between those who would through these lives away and the senator who sees every life has precious, no matter how short, how it is delivered or how the package or contents look. That they are thinking that this would prevent some risky abortions (that procedure that is supposed to be safe now that it is legal) is reprehensible. It treats humans as things and obstacles to be overcome. I don't believe for one minute that these people care about the baby. They care about the baby's impact on them and how it will make demands on them and foul the perfect little society they are trying to make.
I'm amazed at the bigotry against these imperfect little people. We used to have lunch counter signs saying, "no coloreds allow." Now we are going to have hospital signs saying, "no burdensome imperfect people allowed." If you can't pass the perfect test (you have one of the 6,000 conditions we can test for), you can't live in our world. But since it's linked to abortion, it's going to be an acceptable bigotry.
As I often say, the root meaning of compassion is to "suffer with." Infanticide is putting the babies out of OUR misery.
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