Author says she was “just using logical arguments” in concluding infanticide acceptable
We were just funning around, Dr. Francesca Minerva told the Sydney Morning Herald, when she and a colleague wrote that “We claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be.” That article—“After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”—was “a theoretical and academic article,” she protested to the Herald. ”I didn’t mean to change any laws. I’m not in favour of infanticide. I’m just using logical arguments.”
Let’s kick the tires on that one before we kick newborns outside the community of protectable human beings.
At the heart of the argument is a constellation of ideas that Minerva and her colleague Alberto Giubilini argue are not new (which is true). It begins with that all or nothing premise: you have to meet [fill in the blank] criteria and then, perhaps, you are safe. And, oh by the way, we experts will decide what the criteria...