I was reading in the health section of London’s Daily Telegraph, and noticed something interesting. Among the top 5 “most viewed for today,” was an article from February 2012. The other 4 articles were all from March of 2013. This happens from time to time when some article draws the particular interest or ire of readers over time – it keeps popping up in the top five.

The title of the article might give you a sense as to why it has reappeared in the top 5: “Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say”. The news article referred to a study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics which explored the difference between, obviously, abortion and infanticide. The authors argued that babies do not have a moral right to life. From the news article:

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”

Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “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’. Continue reading →