Yesterday, I was made familiar with an article that had appeared on a friend’s Facebook page dealing with the abhorrent subject of after-birth abortions [1]. I do not wish to summarize the entire article, which presents a logically consistent case for infanticide drawn from the premises of the abortionist movement, with very minor changes. To say that I found the arguments of the research by two so-called philosophers in an ethical journal unworthy of the name to be abominable and abhorrent would be a serious understatement. Nonetheless, to provide some context, I would like to discuss the issues raised by the article at least in general, and then provide some discussion as to why they struck me so personally.

Frequent readers of my blog will know that even though abortion is not a frequent subject of my writing, that I write occasionally about the war on children in various countries [1] [2]. There are really at least two sides to this war. One of these fronts is a physical front, dealing with the forced sterilizations and abortions and the actual hatred of life on the part of fearful and corrupt regimes. However, there is another front as well, and that is a more intellectual front, dealing with the sort of worldview that would seek to justify the acts of infanticide and to harden the conscience of people who would wish to commit murder against their own flesh and blood.

What the pro-choice author of the Slate article makes very plain is that the case for infanticide springs directly from the arguments used to defend abortion. We must be careful of making slippery slope arguments, but the sad truth is that in countries like Europe, which are somewhat more morally debased even than the United States when it comes to life issues, economic pressures are leading many parents to abandon their children [4]. Since this is already a reality, to speak of the effects of arguments that reduce the value of life for small children in the eyes of corrupt and morally debased people is not a slippery slope, because its effects are already being seen.

It matters not whether the arguments are seeking to justify in advance a later move to lower the protections on the life and well being of unwanted small children or whether they are a justification of existing violence toward children after the fact, an attempt to assuage the guilty consciences of the wicked and to convince themselves that they have done no wrong. The first would make such future sin premeditated, the second would be a vain search for an alibi after having already done wrong, but both do not make the acts that they seek to justify any less abhorrent. After all, right and wrong are not decided by corrupt elites or even by majority votes, nor by our own wishes and desires, but are legislated and enforced by the Creator and Ruler of the universe, who alone is sovereign.

And if we may kill an unwanted infant or small child because it has some kind of genetic defect, or because of our difficult economic position and our inability or unwillingness to provide for our flesh and blood, and if it has no rights that we are bound to respect, surely we can do whatever we want to it short of murder because the child is not recognized as a human being. Perhaps we may not want to murder a small child, but we may just get angry at it and smack it around a little bit. Or perhaps we will see a little child, who has no rights of it own worthy of protection (in that line of thought), as a proper tool for getting rid of sexual frustrations. After all, the brains of little children are not fully formed and they do not suffer like other human beings do, right?

It seems as if there is a great contradiction within the worldview of many abortionists and their more radical kin who believe in the justification of infanticide. After all, one of the main sympathy cards that the supporters of child-killing pull out is the question of whether rape victims are going to be forced to carry a child conceived in violence to full term. But if the rights of infants and small children are not going to be protected by law, but reside solely in the feelings of their families, there is no protection for anyone from rape and murder and other abuse from the hands of “loved ones.” God forbid that my childhood should be considered as a proper and acceptable one to raise children in.

And that is precisely the problem. At what point does life become worthy of protection. I happen to believe, very strongly, that life begins at conception, and that strong belief carries rather strong repercussions. I have read or heard numerous arguments about life being defined at other points. But wherever that point is defined, the whole value of human rights depends on the status of human being granted to a being. If that can be denied for arbitrary and selfish reasons simply based on power and expedience on the part of parents who lack the proper love for their own flesh and blood, it may be denied by governments as well. Then whoever is counted as a human being depends merely on the power that they have and in the interests of those in power on respecting their personhood and privacy. And in such an atmosphere the entire concept of rights at all is meaningless, since all rights devolve to privileges granted (or denied) by those who have the power to do what they will. That is a scary place to go, and one that is not remotely acceptable. After all, every right that is possessed carries with it a corresponding obligation for that right to be protected and defended by everyone else.

[1] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2012/03/after_birth_abortion_the_pro_choice_case_for_infanticide_.html

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/uzbekistan-and-the-war-on-children/

[3] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/the-meek-shall-inherit-the-earth/

[4] http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/as-austerity-measures-bite-more-babies-are-abandoned-across-europe-in-2-years-it-could-be-epidemic-warns-politician/