The authors of this article essentially argue that there is no moral difference between the infant out of the womb and the fetus in the womb. Thus, since the infant, like the fetus, lacks certain traits that the authors feel are necessary for one to have a right to life, they believe that infants have no right to life.
It is obvious even from the eyes of a pro-choicer that infanticide is wrong. And these authors are so obviously wrong in their view because the pro-life position, that we have a right to life due to what we are and not due to what we can do, is the only criteria in existence that accurately declares all people that we recognize to have a right to life to actually have a right to life (other criteria given by pro-choicers always make somebody that truly does have a right to life not actually have a right to life, such as a severely mentally handicapped person).
I, however, do not desire in this blog post to argue against the article (the above links, as well as others, do a far better job then I could in debunking the authors’ arguments). I do not even desire to point out that this is not something that is really new in the academic world (it is simply something that the average person has not truly heard of often, if at all). I simply desire to ask one question to everybody, both pro-life and pro-choice, who finds this article appalling and disgusting:
What did you expect?
Pro-choicers: what did you expect would happen after you have continued to argue for decades that various extrinsic traits must be acquired in order for one to have a right to life? Did you truly think that their would not be at least a few people who would look at some of these extrinsic traits and say “You know, there are a lot of people who are not in the womb that do not have these traits that are necessary for the right to life; perhaps they do not have a right to life either”? After all, even though what these authors support is deplorable and wrong it is also very consistent, much more consistent with the pro-choice position than most other positions that pro-choicers hold to.
Which leads me to the pro-lifers: what did you expect would happen after we have argued for years that the fetus in the womb is not morally different than anyone outside of the womb, especially those that are outside of the womb that we do understand have a right to life, such as infants? As I stated above, the authors believe that there is no moral difference between the fetus in the womb and the infant; BUT THAT’S THE SAME EXACT THING THAT PRO-LIFERS ARGUE!!! Did it never occur to us, then, that some people would accept that very premise but then argue that infants should not have a right to life instead of saying that, like infants, fetuses have a right to life?
Whenever the pro-lifer says that there are people outside of the womb that many pro-choicers recognize have a right to life but don’t meet the “criteria” for the right to life that pro-choicers say must exist, such as severely mentally handicapped people and infants, than the pro-lifer is making an excellent point that should convince almost anyone with an open mind that the pro-choice position is wrong.
At the same time, however, the pro-lifer, with such an argument, leaves open the possibility for the pro-choicer to go the other way and take away the right to life of severely mentally handicapped people and infants.
I have noticed time and again that pro-lifers usually just bank on the person they are arguing with to not accept the latter position and to accept the former. And usually such a bank pays off. But it should never come as a surprise that, every once in a while, the person you are arguing with might just make that longer leap into the abyss.
We must be prepared for that. It is not enough anymore to argue that the unborn have a right to life. We must now be equipped to argue why anybody and everybody has a right to life.
