 Infanticide is justifiable in some cases, says ethics
professor
The Daily Telegraph, London, UK, By Elizabeth Day, January
25, 2004
One of British medicine's most senior advisers on medical
ethics has provoked outrage by claiming that infanticide is
"justifiable".
Professor John Harris, a member of the British Medical
Association's ethics committee, said that it was not
"plausible to think that there is any moral change that occurs
during the journey down the birth canal" - suggesting that
there was no moral difference between aborting a foetus and
killing a baby.
| |
 |
|
Julia Millington, political director of the
ProLife Party |
The professor's comments were made during an unreported debate
last week on sex selection, which was held as part of the
Commons Science and Technology Committee's consultation on
human reproductive technologies. Prof Harris, who is also a professor of bioethics at the
University of Manchester, was asked what moral status he
accorded an embryo and he endorsed infanticide in cases of a
child carrying a genetic disorder that remained undetected
during pregnancy. He replied: "I don't think infanticide is always
unjustifiable. I don't think it is plausible to think that
there is any moral change that occurs during the journey down
the birth canal." He declined to say up to what age he believed infanticide
should be permissable. Prof Harris, who is one of the founders of the International
Association of Bioethics and the author of 15 books on the
ethics of genetics, was condemned for his remarks. Julia Millington, the political director of the ProLife Party,
who posed the original question to Prof Harris, called the
admission "absolutely horrifying".
"Infanticide is murder and is against the law. It is
frightening to think that university students are being
educated by somebody who endorses the killing of newborn
babies and equally worrying to discover that such a person is
also a member of the ethics committee of the British Medical
Association."
She continued: "Prof Harris is the Establishment's preferred
bioethicist, a member of the Human Genetics Commission, and
has acted as ethical consultant to the Department of Health
and to numerous international bodies. In such a climate is it
any wonder that a baby has been aborted in the UK at seven
months for a cleft palate?"
Prof Harris said that he stood by his remarks, which he
claimed had been elicited "in response to goading" from
pro-life campaigners.
"People who think there is a difference between infanticide
and late abortion have to ask the question: what has happened
to the foetus in the time it takes to pass down the birth
canal and into the world which changes its moral status? I
don't think anything has happened in that time.
"It is well-known that where a serious abnormality is not
picked up - when you get a very seriously handicapped or
indeed a very premature newborn which suffers brain damage -
that what effectively happens is that steps are taken not to
sustain it on life-support.
"There is a very widespread and accepted practice of
infanticide in most countries. We ought to be much more
upfront about the ethics of all of this and ask ourselves the
serious question: what do we really think is different between
newborns and late foetuses?
"There is no obvious reason why one should think differently,
from an ethical point of view, about a foetus when it's
outside the womb rather than when it's inside the womb."
Prof Harris added that it was up to individual families to
make a decision on the future of their child and that he was
not concerned that such a course of action could lead to
infanticide for cosmetic reasons.
"I don't believe there is any such thing as a slippery slope,"
he said. "I think that we are always on one. It is our
responsibility not to avoid the moral choice.
"We shouldn't make a bad decision now because we fear it will
lead us to make another bad decision in the future. We should
make a good decision now and have the courage to believe we
will make a good decision in the future too."
The Rev Joanna Jepson, the Church of England curate who is
going to the High Court to try to block late abortions for
"trivial reasons" such as a cleft palate, said: "It is
frightening to hear anyone endorsing infanticide but it is
shocking when the person is responsible for teaching others."
"This affirms the need for an investigation into the practice
of abortion. We have already seen, in the cleft palate case,
how the law needs to provide more rigorous protection for such
babies but, with medical practitioners such as John Harris at
work, there is no question of our fundamental need to reaffirm
the human value of every baby's life, no matter what its sex
or disability."
A spokeswoman for the British Medical Association said: "These
views of Prof Harris are personal views and do not reflect the
views of the committee or the BMA, which is utterly opposed to
the idea of infanticide."
Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004 |