An article has appeared in the British Medical Journal suggesting it should be acceptable to kill unwanted babies. The article is (misguidedly) justified on the grounds of free speech. In response the Daily Mail has published an article on its website available here
It reads that "Francesca Minerva [a philosopher and medical ethicist with links to Oxford University], argues a young baby is not a real person and so killing it in the first days after birth is little different to aborting it in the womb." She is reported to have suggested that "Doctors should have the right to kill newborn babies because they are disabled, too expensive or simply unwanted by their mothers.'
Lord Alton, who is chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Pro-Life, has responded in the Catholic Herald that: ‘It is profoundly disturbing, indeed shocking, to see the way in which opinion-formers within the medical profession have ditched the professional belief of the healer to uphold the sanctity of human life for this impoverished and inhumane defence of child destruction.’
This is indeed profoundly disturbing. But then what basis do humanist or secular ethicists have other than subjective criteria based upon human sentiment? It is indeed the Christian world view that values all people and upholds the sanctity of life, where transcendent moral laws are accepted as being given by the divine creator. For all their protestations, humanist and secularists invite us to live in a moral and lawless vacuum. The so-called Brave New World they invite us to live in is not a nice place at all.
