Infanticide and the Handicapped Newborn

Infanticide for handicapped infants: sometimes it's a metaphysical dispute.

Since 1973 the practice of infanticide for some severely handicapped newborns has been receiving more open discussion and defence in the literature on medical ethics. A recent and important argument for the permissibility of infanticide relies crucially on a particular concept of personhood that excludes the theological. This paper attempts to show that the dispute between the proponents of inf...

Infanticide for the handicapped newborn--a secular rejection.

Correspondence Infanticide for the handicapped newborn-a secular rejection SIR Thomas Long's article on Infanticide for the Handicapped Newborn seemed to assume that Ramsey's religious stance is the only valid opposition to Kuhse and Singer's utilitarianism. I do not think this is true; from a secular humanitarian point of view killing is also wrong. Kuhse and Singer's definition of a 'person' ...

Ethical problems in the management of some severely handicapped children.

This paper examines some of the arguments advanced and acted upon by doctors concerned in decisions about whether severely handicapped patients should live or die. It criticises the view that 'selective treatment' is morally preferable to infanticide and shows how the standard arguments advanced for this preference fail to sustain it. It argues that the self-deception, which is sometimes cited ...

Of course the baby should live: against 'after-birth abortion'.

In a recent paper, Giubilini and Minerva argue for the moral permissibility of what they call 'after-birth abortion', or infanticide. Here I suggest that they actually employ a confusion of two distinct arguments: one relying on the purportedly identical moral status of a fetus and a newborn, and the second giving an independent argument for the denial of moral personhood to infants (independen...

The plight of the genetically handicapped newborn: a comparative analysis.