AN ETHICIST AT Oxford university has had death threats because of her view that killing newborn babies should be as permissible as an abortion. Dr Francesca Minerva has described a newborn child as a ‘potential person’ and not an actual one. This of course is an extension to the original argument that has been put forward by pro-abortionists since it was legalised in 1967. They argue that the unborn child is only a ‘potential human being’ and not an actual one: and at the embryonic, and part of the foetal stage, is nothing more than tissue.
I have always opposed abortion, and one (only one)[1] of the reasons I did so was because I knew that sooner or later a Dr Francesca Minerva would pop up to elaborate and push further the ‘progressive’ boundaries of ‘my body, my choice’. Whether a society accustomed to abortion on demand, is yet ready for such a view; I very much doubt. But I am sure the good doctor believes her pronouncement has been made before its time and will, in time, become another option for women.
We have a strange view in this country that if some professional, whether medical, or from some department of moral philosophy says something, then, like a pronouncement from God, we immediately accept it as sufficient justification for proceeding with an act that was either illegal or considered morally debased before it was given the okay by the said professional.
Among her many responsibilities, the Roman goddess Minerva catered for medicine and wisdom as part of her heavenly jurisdiction. So sharing such a name, Dr Francesca has a lot to live up to; particularly in fulfilling the attribute of wisdom.
As an ethicist, wisdom is most certainly the major requirement for the position. Dr Francesca speaks for tomorrow. She knows that many of those women who support abortion will find her views either disturbing or repulsive. But her logic is precise; for if a foetus has such diminished status compared to a fully functioning human being; then the feminist goddess Minerva has a point.
For a new born baby may carry the physical symmetry of an early human being, but it lacks every other quality of a human being. It lacks independence and the ability to feed itself, just as does the foetus; it lacks the ability to speak and think rationally, just as does the foetus.
How on earth, our modern Minerva would wisely argue, could such a specimen possibly be regarded as human? She would no doubt plead in her defence (if this not an early April fool joke) that by rightly declaring a time by which a human being is regarded as being a human, as the 1967 Act did, all she is suggesting is that such a time should be extended using the same criteria that the original supporters of abortion used.
THIS ‘ADVANCE’ on the 1967 act has been made possible by the shallow reasoning that the professionals used in order to persuade the politicians, who were at the time under the constant scrutiny of feminism, and caved in to their argument which amounted to little more than the slogan ‘my body, my choice’.
The 1967 Abortion Act was seen as being ‘progressive’, not because of the unborn child (obviously) but because it fell into line with 1960s feminism. Men who wished to stand for parliament at the time; especially within the Labour and Liberal parties had to accommodate themselves with the feminists. I wonder if the suffragettes would have so readily dismissed the unborn as do our modern feminists?
If there is a stage in the pregnancy of a women where it can be terminated on such precarious grounds as the 1967 Abortion Act decides. Then surely, under the same medical and ethical reasoning, there must be a point at which, after the child is born, covers the same criteria.
The 1967 Abortion Act was merely the thin edge of the wedge as many said at the time; but were dismissed. But ask David Steel who authored the act, whether he envisaged such an outcome that Dr Francesca now proposes.
But when you start to interfere with such a biological process and bring the law into play to bring it into being, then it does not end. You cannot put such a genie unleashed by David Steel back into the bottle. He has no right to make any further contribution to the debate; he should sit quietly on the red benches in the Lords and, on this issue, and keep his mouth shut.
The human embryo is just that, a human embryo, and not just a piece of useless tissue. The human embryo is a future leader, artist, writer, statesman, scientist, successful entrepreneur, as well as a future serial killer.
BUT DR FRANCESCA’S contribution has been long in coming for those of us who believed it would arrive one day. We knew that once you degraded the status of the foetus, as the 1967 Act did, time would eventually advance the boundaries beyond what was acceptable at the time of the Act.
In a world where we can now scientifically select according to sex, and (be it at the moment illegal) abort the unwanted gender; in a world where we can abort for various disabilities like down’s syndrome (which bizarrely, is legal); then how long will it be before Dr Francesca is seen as a pioneer?
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