Killing "severly disabled" babies at birth?

[Devastatin Dave]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

Is this the direction of morality in England? Jesus, talk about losing your way. I guess some won't be happy till abortion is legal to high school. Anyway, enough of my dogma, shall we "progress" to killing those that have "less desirable" life expectancies than "able bodied" persons? Sounds very enlightened in a 1940's kind of way to me. What do you think?

[CrossLOPER]

So, if a child is born so badly deformed that they will either be a vegtable or in severe pain their entire (possibly very short) lives and that their life will be a burden physically, emotionally, and economically on both them and their families the parents should not have a choice? Meanwhile in the US, assisted suicide or euthanasia is illegal but starving a person to death is OK? You have some severely misplaced moral notions.

[Devastatin Dave]

So, if a child is born so badly deformed that they will either be a vegtable or in severe pain their entire (possibly very short) lives and that their life will be a burden physically, emotionally, and economically on both them and their families the parents should not have a choice? Meanwhile in the US, assisted suicide or euthanasia is illegal but starving a person to death is OK? You have some severely misplaced moral notions.

Ah, but here lies the question.. Who makes the judgement that the child's life is indesirable to continue life? I live in a country where its perfectly legal to stick a pair of sissors in the back of a perfectly healthy baby's skull, vacuum out his/her's brains out and killed just before it exits its mother's birth canal. Will it be the decision of the parents? The doctors? I have a feeling that there will be a LOT of pure infantcide on children with treatable ailments for the sake of "ending the suffering" of said child. This is a very scary and sad precident. And for a "church" to endorse this latest sickness of the progressive mindset is unbelievable.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

http://www.my914-6.com/hunter/index.htm

Not worth it.

[Devastatin Dave]

http://www.my914-6.com/hunter/index.htm

Not worth it.

Yup, you've convinced me. Let's kill it!!! It hurts my eyes to see such a beast. Kill it now!!!!
Again, who would be the judge and executioner?

[Papewaio]

So, if a child is born ... and that their life will be a burden physically, emotionally, and economically on both them and their families the parents should not have a choice?

All children are a burden physically, emotionally and economically on there families.

[Hepcat]

All children are a burden physically, emotionally and economically on there families.

My parents would agree with you.

[CrossLOPER]

Yup, you've convinced me. Let's kill it!!! It hurts my eyes to see such a beast. Kill it now!!!!
Again, who would be the judge and executioner?

If the parents want to raise him, that's their perogative.

All children are a burden physically, emotionally and economically on there families.

Thank you for intentionally misunderstanding misinterpreting my post. Moreover, perhaps you should not have children if you perceive them as a "burden".

[Scurvy]

Ah, but here lies the question.. Who makes the judgement that the child's life is indesirable to continue life? I have a feeling that there will be a LOT of pure infantcide on children with treatable ailments for the sake of "ending the suffering" of said child. This is a very scary and sad precident. And for a "church" to endorse this latest sickness of the progressive mindset is unbelievable.

There are certain illness's where doctors know without doubt that the child will not live anything close to a life, in these cases they should be allowed to kill the baby.
If it does become legal there won't be inantcide on treatable ailments, because doctors know what can be treated and what can't - its importnant to note that the parents should have some say in the matter, if they really don't want their child to die, and are happy to take both the financial, and mental burden of the child.

[Xiahou]

Here's an excerpt from one of the more touching comments posted after the article:

There are so many normal children seeking loving kind homes and adoptive parents, this is surely a wiser course to take. Take notice of an animal birth, the runt always get thrown out to die.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I really don't see why this bothers people.

kill the blind quadraplegic baby
+
have a new one

= everyone is happy. Who are you to say that baby #2 shouldn't be born? He has as much right to life as baby #1.

[Aenlic]

I'm most certainly not pro-abortion; but I certainly don't think such a difficult decision belongs in the hands of the local priest who has a rather disturbingly high probability to be abusing his young parishioners nor in his followers' hands nor in the hands of the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals who who maxed out his probability to be having gay sex with a male prostitute and doing methamphetamines nor in his followers' hands either. All things considered, I believe that the decision more properly belongs in the hands of the parents with medical advice from their doctors.

[King Ragnar]

It should definately be an option for the parents i mean looking at that link that was posted is very sad but just look at the lad in the picture, can people really say he is even aware of what is going on around?

Im all for killing severely disabled children.

[Banquo's Ghost]

It should definately be an option for the parents i mean looking at that link that was posted is very sad but just look at the lad in the picture, can people really say he is even aware of what is going on around?

Im all for killing severely disabled children.

Why doesn't that surprise me? Diluting the master race are they?

[sharrukin]

The value of human life and the quality of human life are much the same thing. That is, anybody having a serious disability is seriously diminished in the quality of life they can lead. Intense suffering devalues human life, and in so doing denies the human dignity that we all have a right to. True compassion is to alleviate the suffering of a person in pain by hastening their death. Even our animals when they are suffering seriously are frequently put down. Should we do less for human beings?

Human beings have the basic right of choice pertaining to their body, lifestyle, lifespan, birth control, etc and I think it is right that they should have the right to die with dignity as well. Should we deny the most vulnerable of our population, what we grant to adults? It does seem undesirable to society keep these unfortunates alive, and pointlessly cruel as well. Their continued existence burdens relatives, friends and the community, and often, themselves. If we choose to walk away from them because we are distressed at what we are faced with, we do it for ourselves, not them.

We should also embrace a new market-based, high-tech system where children can be what we have always wanted them to be. Why should we have to put up with children that are not everything we want them to be? We can run around in circles and wave our arms if we choose, but these things are already happening to a limited degree, and will only increase in frequency, and choice. Genetic modifications that manipulate the inheritable genes passed on to our children are the key, and the wave of the future. The state obviously has an interest in this, which is not something I can deny. Children, who are genetically predisposed to criminality, or illness, or other foreseeable misconducts, should be regulated. If we could abort a Jeffrey Dahmer before birth, don't we have a moral responsibility to do so?

If one believes purely in the free market then someone like Britney Spears could of course make a fortune selling her genetic code on the open market to young mothers who want children just like her, except with superior intelligence. The problem is that if we allow this, then we are left with the possibility that sub-optimal human beings will also be chosen. The kind we are talking about removing to begin with. It is likely that some parents would go this route and the question we must ask is, should we allow this? Be it for religious reasons, or personal choice, should a parent have the right to burden society with sub-optimal offspring?

What cost will we be willing to pay for unattractive, overweight, alcoholic, criminal, or less intelligent offspring. Whose burden are they? The government cannot spend money endlessly, and choices must be made. Some of these unfortunates, will simply be too expensive to deliver and be cared for, will have to be involuntarily aborted. Irresponsible parents do not have the right to burden society with malformed or mentally incompetent children.

These are the questions we need to ask ourselves.

p.s. This is called the slippery slope.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Ah, discussing the morals of killing babies. Delightful.

Why doesn't that surprise me? Diluting the master race are they?

Come off it. Most of those agreeing with him probably don't share his politics.

Crazed Rabbit

[Ronin]

I say go ahead with it......

let´s be honest with ourselfs....People suck, there's too many of them, and they're easier to kill when they're foetuses/Small Kids than when they are grown up....


*man..I gonna stop posting first thing when I get to the office...my outlook is too grim at this hour *

[BigTex]

Wow I don't know what to say. What are yall doing in the UK? I'm a stout and stubborn supporter for abortions up to late term (when the baby can survive on its own) but this is way to far. So what if the baby is severely mentally retarded, they deserve as a human the right to live and develop. Some of the greatest philosopher's are handicaped mentally and physically. Look at the brilliant Stephen Hawking, one of the smartest people in the world he is severly crippled. He'll probably die eventually from his disabilities. Should we have just given him mercy and taken a knife to his throat when the disability first started to develop?

Good lord, killing a baby becuase it's malformed is beyond me. Let us not forget Budha. So disformed was he that most refered to him as a cyclops. Yet look at what he accomplished. It would be one thing if the person had asked to be killed, but the baby has no say in the matter. The child is a human being, they deserve all the protections of the law and then some because they cannot defend themselves. They deserve to live even if their disabled, we shouldnt snuff out a life because they are handicaped or have severe disorders. This is a very, very slippery slope.

I guess the only thing else I could say is, not in Texas. I would invoke my 1st and 2nd amendment rights and have an armed protest outside the representatives house who proposed this idiocy.

[Spetulhu]

Killing may well be the more merciful thing. What's wrong with euthanasia for severely disabled babies? Is it somehow noble to let them suffer and torment their families with it too?

Oh, how could I forget? The mighty sky pixie commands that people should suffer and die only at his pleasure. Even if it's in your power to help someone else die it's better to let them suffer. A suffering animal can be put down, but humans have SOULS that are purified by suffering.

[Xiahou]

All things considered, I believe that the decision more properly belongs in the hands of the parents with medical advice from their doctors.

That's fair enough- but the example in the article seems to be saying that the parents had to take their doctors to court to keep them from withholding treatment and allowing their baby to die against their will. That's outrageous.

[BDC]

This is because babies who once would have died (or been allowed to die) can or are now saved. Of course a lot die anyway soon, live short miserable lives, or have horrific brain damage. The case mentioned in the article is a bit weird really, never really worked out what was going on.

This isn't like "oh look, let's kill our newborn because they have webbed feet"...

Also, the Daily Mail should be ignored for any serious news articles.

[Aenlic]

That's fair enough- but the example in the article seems to be saying that the parents had to take their doctors to court to keep them from withholding treatment and allowing their baby to die against their will. That's outrageous.

Agreed. The decision should be the parents' not the doctors' and it's obscene that they had to take the doctors to court. Perhaps I should change parents to legal guardian. That's what annoyed me so much about the Terry Schiavo case. Her husband was the legal guardian, not the parents. They tried, and failed, in court to be made the legal guardians. At that point it was his decision and his alone - right or wrong. All those other groups got involved from both sides and not one of them should have been there. It wasn't their call. The court decided, which is the way it works in this country, that he was the legal guardian. At that point, the argument should have been over.

[BigTex]

Killing may well be the more merciful thing. What's wrong with euthanasia for severely disabled babies? Is it somehow noble to let them suffer and torment their families with it too?

Oh, how could I forget? The mighty sky pixie commands that people should suffer and die only at his pleasure. Even if it's in your power to help someone else die it's better to let them suffer. A suffering animal can be put down, but humans have SOULS that are purified by suffering.

There is quite a distinct difference between animals and humans. Humans have the ability to question even their own existence, show me an animal that can do that. They should not be made to suffer, but the child has no say in this, so why should we murder them? I'm certain most of those children would never have wanted to have been murdered when they were born because of their deformities. Don't feed me that soul c##p that seems to come up in every abortion debate. This is not about abortion, this has nothing to even remotely do with abortion. The child has already been born, it is already a full human being, we cannot just murder them for the sake of comformaty. As a great philosopher once said "Struggle breeds greatness".

Each and every parent should take this into consideration when having a child that it could become malformed. But we cannot just kill them. Not only that but how can we bee 100% certain of the diagnosis? How can we be certain that within their lifetime that their will not be a treatment for their deformities? How can you be so certain of so many factors that they should be executed because of them? And if their executed shouldn't we execute any and all "unregular" babies? This is not Rome, this is not Carthage, the child is a human being, it should have a say in the matter of its own life.

Since you support mercy killing. Do you also support honor killings, ceremonial suicide, human sacrifice?

Anyways in this case the parents want their child to live. Having the doctors hold the child hostage to murder it is outrageous. In UK courts is that considered murder or is it even criminal?

[Spetulhu]

Each and every parent should take this into consideration when having a child that it could become malformed. But we cannot just kill them. Not only that but how can we bee 100% certain of the diagnosis? How can we be certain that within their lifetime that their will not be a treatment for their deformities?

There are birth defects that will kill the child in just a few days or months of painful life. If there's research into treatment it would have to be in the last stages of testing in order to give them any hope. Keeping them alive as long as possible just because you can is cruelty. Mercy killing is kindness.

Since you support mercy killing. Do you also support honor killings, ceremonial suicide, human sacrifice

Honour killing is a tribal practice that should be abandoned. Killing your daughter because she was raped? Killing a child that wants to marry the wrong kind of people? Barbaric.

Ceremonial suicide is different from regular suicide how, exactly? Killing yourself in some religious ceremony? That sounds like someone who needs treatment for mental illness.

Human sacrifice?

[Aenlic]

Humans have the ability to question even their own existence, show me an animal that can do that.

I'm reasonably certain my dog questions my existence whenever I try to feed him cheap dog food. His look plainly says "WTF? Are you insane? I'm not eating that crap! Were you replaced by an alien? Where's the friggin' green pod! I want a lawyer!" He just can't say it in words.

[macsen rufus]

With some of the heroic medical interventions possible, at both ends of life, what we end up with under the guise of "extending life" is actually "extending death". Making people die more slowly, extending their suffering. It's a highly emotive subject, for different people have different wishes for themselves, and are happy to extend that to others. I know I have a limit of suffering, a prognosis beyond which I wouldn't want to endure. It's one thing to endure suffering on the road to recovery, but when that road is a purely downhill cul-de-sac, it's a very different matter.

Some of these parents seem to be satisfying their own emotional needs rather than considering the suffering the child will endure in its inevitably brief and pain-ridden life. From the original Mail article:

In practice, doing so can be controversial - with the three months premature Charlotte Wyatt a case in point.

The Portsmouth baby weighed just 1lb at birth, and had severe brain and lung damage. Doctors wanted to be allowed to leave her to die, but her parents successfully campaigned through the courts against them.

Now that the child is three, however, and could be cared for at home, her parents have separated and are considered unsuitable to look after. (sic) ... her.

Are we really saying that what has happened here was in the child's best interests? She is now physically and mentally severely impaired and institutionalised, because her oh-so-loving-parents-who-know-what's-best-for-her dragged the medics through the courts. I assume on legal aid, and that the institution that now cares for her is a state run one.

I'm amazed that some of the conservatives here who'll happily argue that the unemployed should starve rather than be a burden on the tax payer, seem to think this outcome is best for the girl in question in the article. If you want to cut one "non-contributing burden" from the bosom of the state, why not another?

There is quite a distinct difference between animals and humans.

.... yeah, hubris.

[Adrian II]

Wow I don't know what to say. What are yall doing in the UK? I'm a stout and stubborn supporter for abortions up to late term (when the baby can survive on its own) but this is way to far.

Same here, I am staunchly pro-choice and a non-Christian, but that Bishop of Southwark scared the bejeezus out of me.

And the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, who is the vice chair of the Church of England's Mission and Public Affairs Council, has also argued that the high financial cost of keeping desperately ill babies alive should be a factor in life or death decisions.

Is that man a Christian?

http://www.my914-6.com/hunter/index.htm

Sasaki, there are counter-examples of parents and doctors prolonging untold suffering in new-born children for reasons of religiosity, medical hubris, etcetera.

Anecdotal evidence and moral absolutes are useless in practice, i.e. when you are faced with a dilemma without knowing the outcome of your decisions. With 20/20 hindsight, some parents will be satisfied with their decision to intervene in certain ways, others will not. And in this regard, non-intervention is a choice just like any other. This boy Hunter that you refer to may have lived for six years in relative comfort and happiness. Other Hunters die horribly after six years of constant pain and misery.

The only question we can legitimately address is who should decide and on what grounds. Your suggestion (as per Hunter's example) that parental love and deviotion will always prevail over pain, misery and death is, to say the least, naive.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Killing may well be the more merciful thing. What's wrong with euthanasia for severely disabled babies? Is it somehow noble to let them suffer and torment their families with it too?

Oh, how could I forget? The mighty sky pixie commands that people should suffer and die only at his pleasure. Even if it's in your power to help someone else die it's better to let them suffer. A suffering animal can be put down, but humans have SOULS that are purified by suffering.

Paragraph 1 asks a very pertinent moral question.

Paragraph 2 then turns snide and insulting. Your question would have stood well enough on its own. Instead you had to trivialize, at least implicitly, my religious beliefs and mock me for holding such a view. This was beyond what was called for in this discussion, to say the least.

Yes, I belong to a Church that teaches that life -- and imbuement with an immortal soul -- begins at conception. To take action to end life at any time after that moment would obviously be a wrong, at least on some level. For me, this makes the larger topic question rather easy to answer. You need not agree, but a decent respect for the opinions of others -- and you can no more disprove my belief than I could yours -- suggests that some modicum of restraint would have been more appropriate.

[Adrian II]

Paragraph 1 asks a very pertinent moral question.

Paragraph 2 then turns snide and insulting. Your question would have stood well enough on its own. Instead you had to trivialize, at least implicitly, my religious beliefs and mock me for holding such a view. This was beyond what was called for in this discussion, to say the least.

Yes, I belong to a Church that teaches that life -- and imbuement with an immortal soul -- begins at conception. To take action to end life at any time after that moment would obviously be a wrong, at least on some level. For me, this makes the larger topic question rather easy to answer. You need not agree, but a decent respect for the opinions of others -- and you can no more disprove my belief than I could yours -- suggests that some modicum of restraint would have been more appropriate.

Seamus, I disagree with your views on the issue, but this post proves once more that you are Senior Member material. Palms will have to be greased, files lifted and the occasional reputation destroyed in the process, but it shouldn't be long before you can access KukriKhan's beer stash.

[Spetulhu]

Paragraph 1 asks a very pertinent moral question.

Paragraph 2 then turns snide and insulting. Your question would have stood well enough on its own. Instead you had to trivialize, at least implicitly, my religious beliefs and mock me for holding such a view. This was beyond what was called for in this discussion, to say the least.

I'm sorry for making you feel bad, less so for mocking certain religions. The "life is always sacred" POV causes suffering in many ways. The terminally ill should just grin and bear it even when they can no longer think coherently because of the painkillers. Babies that - at best - will never be more than vegetables must still be taken care of. Since condoms could prevent unwanted pregnancy they are forbidden, HIV be damned.

But let us return to paragraph 1. Why should people be made to suffer if there are alternatives?