Right to Life is opposed to the killing of newborn infants. Their killing is proposed by Dr Francesca Minerva of the University of Melbourne and Dr Alberto Giubilini of the University of Milan in their paper After- birth abortion: why should the baby live? The doctors argue that babies that are only several hours old don’t have the “ moral status as actual persons” The Paper was published in the prestigious Journal of Medical Ethics.
Dr Minerva claims that newborn babies don’t have the characteristics that define a person: The ability to attribute a certain value to their own life, the ability to make plans for the future, the ability to appreciate and value that they are actually alive.”
Dr Minerva claims that newly born babies are not persons and are the property of the family and may be killed at the request of the babies’ family for any reason that is permitted for abortion.
Why did a renowned journal of medical ethics publish a dangerous anti-life philosophy that is a serious threat to society?
The philosophy propounded by Dr Minerva is a secular, quality of life ethic that is false and attacks on the sanctity of life ethic. When we lose respect for the right to life and personhood of unborn children we lose respect for the right to life of every person. If the conditions for personhood proposed by Dr Minerva were accepted it would ultimately result in the denial of the personhood and the right to life of those with dementia and Alzheimers disease.
Human life commences at conception and at that moment the new human being is endowed by its Creator with human rights, the foundation right being an inalienable right to life. If society is repelled by the proposal to kill new born – babies why then is it not equally repelled by the killing of children in the womb?
The dignity of the unborn child is neither conferred nor taken away by any man or woman or by any government or society. That dignity is rooted in an objective individuality that inherently tends toward the openness and transcendence which we call personhood.
The proposed killing of born children is a logical progression as society has accepted the wholesale killing of unborn children. It was the Court of Appeal in New Zealand which in 2011 declared that unborn children did not have a right to life and that unborn children did not become human beings until they were born. This is a violation of the human rights of unborn children. If we can accept that the unborn are not human beings and persons endowed with human rights, it is inevitable that we will challenge the human rights of born children.
The Paper of Dr Minerva and Dr Giubilini published by the prestigious Journal of Medical Ethics raises other serious issues. Why did a renowned journal of medical ethics publish a dangerous anti-life philosophy that is a serious threat to society? How did Dr Minerva merit a PhD in medical ethics when she holds to a philosophy that is anti –life and which is totally opposed to an accepted sanctity of life medical ethics? Why does the University of Melbourne employ Dr Minerva as a Post Doctorate Fellow at the Centre of Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics? Why are university students who are the future leaders in society been made subject to teaching that is anti-life and which attacks the human rights of the weakest and most defenceless members of the human family? Are students at Universities in New Zealand being subject to this dangerous anti-life philosophy?
We are threatened with an increasing culture of death. Right to Life calls upon the community to draw back from the abyss which threatens society and encourages our Parliament to halt the killing of our unborn and legislate for the legal recognition of the unborn child as a human being endowed with a right to life.
Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life
What a load of ^#$%^*& can these idiots (yes I call them idiotic, education obviously does not buy brains) please explain at what age exactly we should stop killing people??? Yes I say people because I know some 30 year olds who still don’t have “The ability to attribute a certain value to their own life, the ability to make plans for the future, the ability to appreciate and value that they are actually alive”!!!!!
I am so incensed by this that I would actually like to ask when these so called educated doctors would like to take their own lives and rid the world of their inability to attribute a certain value to life an inability to appreciate and value that they are actually alive?????? Imagine their mothers had decided that they were not worthy of living!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!