Litmus Tests, Slippery Slopes
A broader issue lies behind the partial-birth dispute. It isn't the fate of Roe v. Wade; it's the future of infanticide. Some straws in the wind: Peter Singer, the animal liberationist, published an article, KILLING BABIES ISN'T ALWAYS WRONG, citing babies with severe handicaps. Michael Tooley, a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado, thinks parents should have "some period of time, such as a week after birth" during which infanticide is permitted. A number of pro-choice theorists believe that newborns are not yet persons and should not have the rights of fully formed human beings.
Joseph Farah of the Western Journalism Center wrote an Internet article warning readers to "Pay attention. . . . The seeds of a movement are being planted." One seed burst into flower in the Times November 2 Sunday magazine. An article by MIT psychology professor Steven Pinker titled WHY THEY KILL THEIR NEWBORNS argued that infanticide is immoral but normal in many societies and perhaps biologically based. People think of birth as the boundary that defines personhood and rights, he wrote, but "to a biologist, birth is as arbitrary a milestone as any other."
This does indeed look like the rise of a movement committed to the moral and legal defense of killing after birth. By blurring the line between abortion and infanticide, partial-birth abortions obviously play into the hands of these people. So a ban on the gruesome procedure is all the more urgent.
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