Kill the babies

I wish I could say that I was making this up...

From TheTimesOnline.com there is an article entitled "Doctors: let us kill disabled babies":

ONE of Britain’s royal medical colleges is calling on the health profession to consider permitting the euthanasia of seriously disabled newborn babies.

The proposal by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology is a reaction to the number of such children surviving because of medical advances. The college is arguing that “active euthanasia” should be considered for the overall good of families, to spare parents the emotional burden and financial hardship of bringing up the sickest babies.

The article is very clear that we are not just talking about not using the most invasive, and typically futile, efforts to save a life. This is about what it calls "active euthanasia:"

The college’s submission to the inquiry states: “We would like the working party to think more radically about non-resuscitation, withdrawal of treatment decisions, the best interests test and active euthanasia as they are ways of widening the management options available to the sickest of newborns.”

Initially, the inquiry did not address euthanasia of newborns as this is illegal in Britain. The college has succeeded in having it considered. Although it says it is not formally calling for active euthanasia to be introduced, it wants the mercy killing of newborn babies to be debated by society.

Why would one want this issue debated, given that it is already illegal, except to lay the ground work for making it legal in the future? Yet within this same article, the "debate" already begins on dishonest grounds. One ethicist, for example, is quoted saying:

Joy Delhanty, professor of human genetics at University College London, said: “I would support these views. I think it is morally wrong to strive to keep alive babies that are then going to suffer many months or years of very ill health.”

But the proposal is not about "striving to keep alive babies." It states plainly that it is about "active euthanasia." In other words, not about witholding care, but about actively killing these children. Other "ethicists," however, are not so confused on the issue, and speak out more plainly.

The college’s submission was also welcomed by John Harris, a member of the government’s Human Genetics Commission and professor of bioethics at Manchester University. “We can terminate for serious foetal abnormality up to term but cannot kill a newborn. What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it okay to kill the foetus at one end of the birth canal but not at the other?” he said.

So now we have a member of the government stating the obvious. If we can kill the children before they leave the birth canal, why not after? Curiously, when debates used to take place in the past over abortion rights, proponents of abortion assured us that they were not arguing for infanticide. Obviously, what some of them did not add, at the end of that statement, was the word "yet." And so, we move further down the slippery slope in the Culture of Death. A mother of a severely disabled child is even trotted out in support of the proposal, saying that the killing of her child "should be an option for the mother,” albeit in "extremely controlled circumstances" (none of which are outlined, including in the proposal itself).

One doctor is quoted in the article in opposition to the proposal.

John Wyatt, consultant neonatologist at University College London hospital, said: “Intentional killing is not part of medical care.” He added: “The majority of doctors and health professionals believe that once you introduce the possibility of intentional killing into medical practice you change the fundamental nature of medicine. It immediately becomes a subjective decision as to whose life is worthwhile.”

If a doctor can decide whether a life is worth living, “it changes medicine into a form of social engineering where the aim is to maximise the benefit for society and minimise those who are perceived as worthless”.

And one disabled rights activist is also quoted.

Simone Aspis of the British Council of Disabled People said: “If we introduced euthanasia for certain conditions it would tell adults with those conditions that they were worth less than other members of society.”

That has, of course, been what the debate has always been about. Once we opened the door to the legal killing of innocent human beings (in the "extremely controlled" circumstance of abortions only), the rationale becomes irresistable. Now the same arguments are brought forward in favour of infanticide, and those who supported abortion are left with the challenge: Why say no? We can kill the children in the womb, and even in the birth canal, why not later, after she is born?

Why indeed.

Pope John Paul II, and his successor have spoken long and loudly against the Culture of Death, and in favour of the Culture of Life. Many others, Catholic and Protestant alike, have joined them. Very simply, once the rights of some are denied, the rights of all are impacted. Today we are seeing the next step in that horrific march, and we must hope that we will soon reverse the trend, and establish the fundamental human right to life for everyone.