Pete in Brisbane,

To most such problems there is a simplistic answer. Like most people, I am saddened by your personal story and find the idea of killing a newborn baby pretty horrible, although Estelle is right about the hypocrisy of pontificating on the right to life of a badly disabled infant and then leaving the unfortunate parents to get on with it without support for the next 50 or 60 years.

Here is a case for you to consider. There is a congenital defect called anencephaly, in which a baby is born with most of its brain missing. It may have a brain stem so that it can breathe, but all the parts of the brain that are associated with higher functions or consciousness just don't exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly

Such babies inevitably die within a few days no matter what is done. Some parents of such children in the US have wanted to donate their perfectly good organs (including lungs?) to save the lives of several other babies, so that some good could come out of their family's tragedy. If the surgeons wait for nature to take its course, then the organs will have deteriorated to the point where they are useless. So far, however, courts have refused to declare such a baby legally dead so that the organs can be used. No doubt the Bill Muhlenbergs of this world would be glad that the sanctity of life has been upheld, even if it results in more dead bodies.

Thank you Bill for standing up for the weakest and most vulnerable of the human family. You've shown the two ways before us but I fear admitting our guilt now will be too much to bear for us now, unless we can also believe in some supernatural agency for redemption.

@Pete. A knockdown argument. Thank you.

Human capacities lacking in the young because they've yet to be actualised, or lacking because in abeyance in the sick and infirm, or attenuating in the elderly, is no criteria for determining humanity and our natural right to life. Here lies the arbitrary boundaries of the eugenicist, euthaniser, and feticidal maniac. They are the arbitrary metaphysical boundaries created by Power, a caste system of the 'truly human' that the elite intellectuals just happen to find puts them with the Brahmins.

Our 'elite' can imagine spending trillions of working class taxpayer dollars chasing atmospheric geo-engineering projects, and re-ordering industrial society, but create conditions in which their babies are welcomed into life? Overpopulation! (lie), reproductive choice! (evil Orwellianism), sexual freedom! (keep them out of marriage and we can be rid of them and their spawn).

The elite can never admit their guilt, presiding over the greatest mass murder in human history. They would turn over the country to foreign conquerers , legalise cannibalism, anything, before admitting what abortion really means.

Mark Shea:
"How in hell do you argue in such a way as to supply fundamental moral intuitions to blithering moral idiots? If a person can’t see that slitting an infant’s throat is a Bad Thing, what possible method of moral suasion can be used to make a moral imbecile–and particularly a highly educated moral imbecile–capable of the sense God gave a goose? I sometimes begin to suspect that the violence of the Old Testament was sometimes the only language fallen man could understand and that treatises on ethics for cretins who hurled babies into the flames were not as educational as the siege, famine, slaughter and exile God in fact permitted in his providence.

We are a civilization facing an awful reckoning."

@ Divergence & Houellebecq,

Thank you for your condolences (and sorry about my spelling!)

Divergence, we actually did look to see if the Dr's could use our boy's organs for other babies, but the timing etc was not right. We thought exactly what you thought - if it was not ment to be for our boy, perhaps he could give another a better chance. And certainly like you said, there certainly are situations where any type of long-term living is just non-compatible. For me, we knew that we gave our boy the best shot at life and we are comfortable with that decision.

@Houellebecq:
"'We chose to turn off his life support', I don't think would be acceptable to the religious lot.

There's a bit of inconsistency there because man is 'playing god' with abortions but somehow not playing god when keeping unviable humans alive with technology."

I think you are right, there is an inconsistency. We knew we gave our boy the best shot at life. We had to wait until he was born until we found out if he was 'unviable' (in your words) or not. When it was very clear that he was not going to make it, then we turned off the machines. So yes, there is an inconsistency. The difference for us, however, was not that we tried to prolong something that was not ment to be OR to 'kill off any chances early'; it was us knowing we gave him the best shot.

I like to think we can agree that is is such a shame that a choice would have to be made that a baby / unborn baby (whatever term you want to give it) would be unwanted, weather it be because of rape, terminal illness etc and then be 'gotten rid of'. We can all dream though!

In the 'real world', everything is grey.

I just think it is incredibly sad that such a hard decision can be so coldly written about by these academics.

Yabby, Divergence & Houellebecq,I have enjoyed hearing your point of veiw. It certainly has challenged me!

The comments made under the article are just scary. The Australian people are malignant narcissists and pompous, arrogantly self-serving. It just scares me this kind of attitude, and their willingness to collaborate with killing children overseas. Yikes!

Thanks for this article Bill.

A couple of responses to the comments (Part 1 of 2):

@Foyle - you were a foetus once, do you feel like a person? You have the same DNA today as you did the day you were conceived, why do you think you would have been less of a person then than you are now? Same question could be posed to anyone in here

@Pete in Brisbane - why would you oppose abortion but not in cases of rape? Abortion in cases of rape attribute to less than 1% of all abortions. A baby conceived in rape is no less a person, with no less of a right to life than anyone else. You may like to read up on a facebook page called Conceived in Rape Awareness. Did you know that Layne Beachley was conceived in rape? It's almost like telling her, or others who were, that they have a right to not be here simply because of how they came to be....

*You have the same DNA today as you did the day you were conceived*

Interestingly every cell in the body contains the same dna. Losing
a bit of skin, does not create a person. The zygote is a not a
person, but cells. An acorn is not an oak tree either.

What fascinates me is this so called "right to life". Catholics
go on about "the natural law". Well in nature the offspring need
parents willing to look after them, or they die a cruel death.
As Darwin pointed out, far more potential beings will be created,
then can ever survive. He was right. The church seems to apply the
natural law as it suits their dogma.

Houllie, when Bush saw to it that abortion clinics were shut down
in the third world, by cutting off funding, I followed the stories
at the time. In Ethiopia, where they pop em out far faster they
can ever feed them, they had to make some tough decisions. Some
simply left them out for the hyenas to take care of. Those are
the sorts of unintended consequences of the actions of the religious
lobby, all very sad really.