Civil rights for the unborn?

A thought-provoking video by ProLife Wisconsin (hat tip to John Smeaton)...

It brings to mind the words of Ruth Pakaluk, featured in an earlier post.  "Human rights are rights that pertain to us simply in virtue of the fact that we are human, not for any reason above and beyond that; the fundamental human right is the right to life, and so, if that right is denied, then all human rights are in effect denied; the thing growing in the mother's womb is surely alive (otherwise it would not need to be killed by abortion), and it is human; thus, to deny that the thing growing in the mother's womb has the right to life is to deny that anyone has any human rights whatsoever."

Babies give us our value, not the other way round

The big pro-life news today is, of course, the report by two Oxford university medical ethicists, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, suggesting that "post birth abortion" is morally licit.  This, according to these ethicists, is because newborn babies are not actually people.  Human, yes, but simply being human doesn't by itself make you a person.  Not even if you're 21 or 81, according to criteria developed by ethicists who have influenced Giubilini and Minerva.  More on that later.

This paper, entitled After birth abortion: why should the baby live? and published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, only focuses on the personhood status of newborns.  A newborn - the authors claim - is morally equivalent to a foetus, i.e. is not a true person in their eyes, because it lacks the mental development to appreciate the value of its life (a major ground of this appreciation seems to be the ability to make future aims) and will not therefore be harmed by being deprived of this life.  This means that a range of factors which would constitute grounds for abortion are also valid reasons to kill the newborn child - for example severe disability or posing a threat to the mental wellbeing of the mother.  Because the baby has no inherent value as a person in itself, it only has the value someone else, such as its mother, places upon it.  If she does not feel able to cope with the child and therefore does not attribute value to it as a person, then it has none.  This being so, it is morally permissible to kill a healthy newborn rather than give it up for adoption, if the mother feels she would be more traumatised by having the baby adopted rather than killing it.

A few choice phrases from the report (emphases mine):

"In spite of the oxymoron in the expression, we propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide’, to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus... 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. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk. Accordingly, a second terminological specification is that we call such a practice ‘after-birth abortion’ rather than ‘euthanasia’ because the best interest of the one who dies is not necessarily the primary criterion for the choice, contrary to what happens in the case of euthanasia.

"Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her. This means that many non-human animals (! - but not human babies) and mentally retarded human individuals are persons, but that all the individuals who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons. Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.

"Therefore, the rights and interests of the actual people involved should represent the prevailing consideration in a decision about abortion and after-birth abortion.... Actual people's well-being could be threatened by the new (even if healthy) child requiring energy, money and care which the family might happen to be in short supply of."

I appreciate that it is generally bad practice to quote extracts from a report out of context, but I invite you to read the whole thing here and see whether it is any less chilling.

I am grateful to a pro-life colleague for some background information about the report's influences.  The publishing Journal's editor, Julian Savulescu, had his doctorate supervised at Monash University, Melbourne by Peter Singer, who in turn was a disciple of Joseph Fletcher. My colleague wrote that "Savulescu is now Editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics which published this paper and also Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at Oxford University.  One of the authors is affiliated to Monash, the other to the Uehiro Centre."

According to Human Life International, Fletcher was an Episcopalian priest until, in 1960, he saw the light, renounced his belief in God (though apparently remaining an Episcopalian priest), became a founding father of situation ethics and drew up a delightful list of criteria to identify which human beings are persons and which not.  Read them here.  You will notice that if you have an IQ below 40 you are only questionably human (Fletcher drew up his list as qualifying factors for being "human": the terminology has since been adjusted to "personhood"); other factors ruling you out altogether are lack of self-control, a bad grasp of the passage of time, lack of capability to relate to others particularly sexually or romantically, lacking in curiosity, and being either overly rational or overly emotional in character.  One shudders to think of the vast swathes of human beings who would lose their right to life as persons under these definitions. In fact reading the list I couldn't believe anyone would take it seriously... but this latest report shows that they have indeed, deadly seriously.

Of course, as my colleague pointed out when they sent over the information, this is all the result of allowing the definition of personhood to become arbitrary.  It is in fact quite logical that, having once allowed human life to become a person in the true sense of the word at some point after conception rather than at the moment of conception, the point at which personhood (and the attendant right to life) is attained becomes a moveable feast.  It depends on subjective factors, on the situational context, on utilitarian considerations, on the point of view of someone who happens in the case of a particular individual to have been handed the responsibility of attributing value to that individual.  Even the authors of the report being discussed admit that  "it is hard to exactly determine when a subject starts or ceases to be a ‘person’", suggesting that in the case of a healthy newborn this would depend on neurological and psychological examination by the relevant experts.  A nightmare scenario indeed.  Here's the maternity ward and here comes Dr Death to decide whether this baby should live or die...

Giubilini and Minerva talk about the mother attributing value to her newborn child.  We have three children and the youngest is now 16 but I can still remember the sheer wonder of those new little people, flesh of my flesh and of my husband's, being placed in my arms... the indescribable feeling of waking up after my first postnatal sleep and turning in bed to notice afresh, as amazed as though it were for the first time, the acrylic cot with a tiny boy or girl in it.  I had no sense of ascribing value to them.  They were perfect, complete little miracles and they ascribed new value to me.  There was no meaning or value I could add to them that they did not already have, and none that I had any power to take away.  The only variable there could possibly be was my response to that value.

Admittedly, at the time these were picture-perfect births in terms of the situation - happily married parents who were not poor and who very much wanted these children.  Many years later, we were to find out that one of our tiny little miracles had actually been born with faulty genes and was destined for a life of failing mobility and a range of other potential problems.  It wouldn't have made any difference if we'd known then.  She'd have been just as humanly perfect, just as meaningful, with just the same intrinsic value.  And over the past years, thanks to that very genetic error and the special needs that elicit extra love and concern from those around her, the "value added" she has brought to our lives is incalculable.

Giubilini, Minerva, Singer, Fletcher - you've got it wrong.  It isn't us who attributes value and personhood to newborn babies, the disabled or the very elderly.  It is they who endow us with value.

Footnote:
Since writing this post and the one below, I have read two excellent postings on each topic from the Christian point of view on "Christian Medical Comment", here and here. Thank you Peter Saunders for a lucid look at the principles involved coupled with a rallying call to Christian integrity and faithfulness!

The sublime and the ridiculous

Am feeling too muzzy-headed with a mild cold (violins in background) and jittery because of second go at driving test tomorrow (alarm bells!) to write anything even mildly insightful or intelligent - not that I would generally describe my posts as either of those things, given the abundance of truly insightful and intelligent commentators out there on the "super blogs".  However I was very struck by the latest post on Christian Medical Comment about a perhaps rather surprising defender of faith, Matthew Parris, and wanted to mention it.

The full article by Mr Parris in the Spectator, to which Peter Saunders refers on his blog, is well worth reading.  In terms of what faith is all about, Matthew seems to "get it" a lot better than many of we modern-day Catholics who are continually fed a rather bland and unchallenging diet of tolerance, inclusivism and trying not to upset anyone.  Not that I am against tolerance and sensitivity - I think they're very important.  But not at the expense of compromising Truth and losing passion: not least because without conviction and passion, we will never touch anyone, let alone convert them.

To quote parts of Mr Parris' article, "This goes to print on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. So allow me to pitch in to February’s religion-versus-secularism debate from a new direction. As an unbeliever I wish to complain on behalf of serious religious belief. Faith is being defended by the wrong people, in the wrong way... Jesus did not come to earth to offer the muzzy comforts of weekly ritual, church weddings and the rhythm of public holidays... The (Muslim) Chairman of the Conservative party, Daniel Finkelstein, the Archbishop of York, Giles Coren, the Queen and Eric Pickles [have all] expressed alarm at the advance of ‘militant’ secularism. Only a minority, however, have reaffirmed with any muscularity their belief in God...

"My 'Times' colleague Daniel Finkelstein, in a moving column well summarised by its headline ‘It’s easy to mock religion — but then what?’, as good as declares himself a Jewish atheist but goes on to assert the importance of faith and religious ritual in holding people together. Affectionately he recalls fiddling as a small child with the fringes of his father’s prayer-shawl. He thinks it good (as do I) that human beings ceaselessly struggle to find meaning and purpose in life; and deplores the illiberal ‘liberalism’ that seeks to sneer at that...

"If a faith is true it must have the most profound consequences for a man and for mankind. If I seriously suspected a faith might be true, I would devote the rest of my life to finding out... As I get older the sharpness of my faculties begins to dull. But what I will not do is sink into a mellow blur of acceptance of the things I railed against in my youth. ‘Familiar’ be damned. ‘Comforting’ be damned. ‘Useful’ be damned. Is it true? — that is the question. It was the question when I was 12 and the question when I was 22. Forty years later it is still the question. It is the only question."

Mr Parris, defender of our faith?

Those often referred to as "miliant secularists/atheists" also seem to get it, in a way.  They are certainly passionately concerned with establishing their own modern-day system of belief and proselytising the rest of us.  Tolerance and rubbing along together are not on the agenda (as a friend, who describes himself as being at the liberal end of the Catholic Church, recently remarked, it often seems there's no-one as illiberal as a liberal).  Because of course, if you are asserting your right to the social acceptance of your worldview, you are also asserting the same right for those of other worldviews - whereas what is actually happening is the abrogation of some people's rights in favour of others.

If I shopped in a store owned by Muslims, I would not necessarily expect them to stock and serve alcohol, even if that type of store was legally permitted to sell it and I was permitted in law to buy it.  There would be plenty of other places to go buy my booze.  Just as there are plenty of bed and breakfasts whose owners would not be being forced to act against their deeply-held beliefs by renting double beds to homosexual couples.  If a committee to which I belonged held Buddhist meditation at the beginning of its meetings, or some other sincerely-motivated prayer ceremony, I would politely sit through it or at the most assert my right to wait in another room until that part of proceedings was finished (supposing no human sacrifice or the like was going on of course, which seems rather unlikely).  I would not storm off to the nearest court to protest.  In the same way, I wouldn't turn up at a mosque and demand to be married there whether I met the criteria for their definition of marriage or not - there would be other options available to me.  As far as I can see, that is what rubbing along together in our society means, and the essence of true tolerance, one that gives us all the right to passionately defend and even promote our beliefs but not at the price of denuding others of theirs.  The whole concept of "individual rights" has been twisted and hijacked for the interests of a minority, in a way that is often frightening. 

It's all barmy really.  And the barmiest thing is that when it comes to a true human right - the right to life, based not on some arguable definition of when an embryo becomes a person, and not on a misdefinition of a foetus as being somehow part of a woman's body, but on the undeniable fact of simply being a human life in existence - we are happy to dismiss it, even though without this basic right to life no other human rights exist in the first place.

Hey-ho.  I've strayed from my first point (the vital, life-changing importance of religious belief, which believers should stand up for and agnostics have no right to denigrate or patronise) to a second (the hypocrisy of what our society today labels as tolerance and liberalism).  I said I was virus-ridden and muzzy-headed!  Having said that, the two points are essentially related, because the only way for the first point to flourish is for the second one to be got right.  And getting the second point wrong, the true nature of tolerance and human rights, means that many of we Christians today are not the witnesses for our faith that we should be - either because we're misguided as to those concepts ourselves, or because we're frightened.

Let's hope my muzzy-headedness has cleared by tomorrow, or that my driving examiner has eaten a lot of Weetabix for his breakfast.  Apologies to those of my friends who have already been treated to the video below!