Beyond abortion
Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology has suggested that the health profession should consider legalizing “active euthanasia” for seriously disabled newborn babies.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is conducting an inquiry into “the ethical issues raised by the policy of prolonging life in newborn babies”. According to this article in The Sunday Times, the inquiry wasn't going to consider euthanasia because it's illegal in Britain. But the College has managed to get the inquiry to consider euthanasia as one of the ways of “widening the management options available to the sickest of newborns”.
Let's be clear: we're not talking about non-resuscitation, or the withdrawal of treatment or treatment decisions, or any of the issues involved in artificially prolonging life. We're talking about active euthanasia.
The College's arguments in support of their proposal are the usual arguments used in this kind of debate—arguments based on the desire to reduce/avoid suffering for the affected person and their family. There's nothing new there.
What alarms me, though, is the boldness evident in their language. Gone are the attempts to disguise what they are really talking about by using language that makes babies sound like lifeless body tissue, and murder sound like a routine medical procedure. No longer are these people hiding behind words like ‘foetus’ and ‘termination’. We are now seeing full and frank discussion of killing infants and newborns. For example, take this quote from the College:
A very disabled child can mean a disabled family. If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making, even preventing some late abortions ...
Even more alarming is this, from Professor and bioethicist John Harris in support of the College's proposal:
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?
Well, exactly. I wholeheartedly agree, but isn't that an argument for criminalizing abortion rather than legalizing active euthanasia? If this horrific language causes people to actually be horrified by the idea of killing babies, I'm glad that someone is being so bold and honest about what they are arguing for. As it is, I think it will just desensitize people so that “in the futility of their minds”, they will simply add to the number of babies already being killed (Eph 4:17).