Bioethics

Bioethics 

Scientific article defends as morally acceptable the death of a newborn

 

An article in last week of February in the Journal of Medical Ethics claims that it should be allowed to kill a newborn in cases where the law also allows abortion. The controversy goes on growing. The author of the text has received death threats.

The article in question (click here for html version, or here to download a pdf version, both in English), accepted for scientific publication that linked the British Medical Journal entitled "After-birth abortion: Why Should the baby live?"  It is signed by Francesca Minerva, graduated in philosophy from the University of Pisa (Italy) with a dissertation on Bioethics, who obtained her doctorate two years ago in Bologna and is a researcher associated to Oxford University in England. Her controversial thesis is that "post-birth abortion" (killing a newborn ") should be allowed in all those cases where abortion is also allowed, even in situations in which the newborn is not a handicapped person. "This idea - understood by most critical readers of the article as a call for the legalization of infanticide - is the conclusion of a moral debate that the author, together with another researcher who coauthored the article - Alberto Giubilini - try to make from three principles: 1) "the fetus and a newborn does not have the same moral status of the people", 2) "is morally irrelevant whether the fetus and newborn are people in power", 3) "adoption is not always in the best interest of the people."

Given the controversy that has arisen around this reading, the editor of the newspaper publicaly  defends the publication of the text, arguing that the newspaper's role is to present well-supported arguments and not to promote one or another current opinion. However, other scientists and  Francesca Minerva's followers qualify the thesis of the article as the "defense of the inhuman destruction of children." 

Francesca Minerva; the Smile of Death