The philosophical debate about the attributes of
“potential” persons versus “actual” persons has been mostly limited to moral
and ethical considerations concerning the permissibility of abortion. In recent
history, the point in time when “potential” persons would turn into “actual”
persons has been continually pushed back in synch with medical progress, until
in certain circles and jurisdictions the “potentiality” of a person for all
practical purposes ceased to exist, and was entirely replaced by his
“actuality,” with many of the social, moral, and legal consequences inherent in
such a construct.
But this argument can just as well be taken in the other
direction: the lack of attributes of an “actual” person may well extend not
only until birth, but also a bit beyond. This is precisely what two scholars
recently did, opening Pandora’s Box a mile wide in the process:
“Australian philosopher and medical ethicist Dr Francesca
Minerva and Dr. Alberto Giubilini, a bioethicist from the University of Milan,
wrote “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?” which claims killing
babies is as ethically permissible as abortion.” (The Telegraph, March 2, 2012)
Every civilization has pretenses in professing its
protection of human life. The reality of every civilization is, however, that
life is protected only with some ifs and buts. In other words, its protection
is contingent upon what is by any other name a balancing of interests.
Some religious doctrines, including Christianity and
Buddhism, attempted absolute protection of human life, which was ultimately
based on the impossibility of ensuring equitable procedures as well as rational
justification for any exception.
The ancient Roman question “quis custodiet ipsos
custodes?” (“Who shall watch over the guardians themselves?”
- Juvenal, Satire VI, lines 347–8) has then and since remained
unanswered – and may fairly be presumed unanswerable within our known framework
of moral philosophy – for all extrajudicial killings.
Other religious doctrines, including Judaism, Islam, and
Hinduism, perhaps more honestly from a pragmatic viewpoint, accepted the
inevitability of conditionality of the protection of life in its social
context. As a matter of practical necessity, such a stance has to give a
certain latitude to arbitrary choices. And therein lies the true significance
of the debate triggered by this article on “after-birth abortion.”
In the cultural context of the philosophical debate on
the subject framed by Minerva and Giubilini as “after-birth abortion,” it
seems, of course, inevitable that the ghost of Dr. Mengele be conjured up to
end all further argument. But let us, for a change, take a rational and
unsentimental approach to this analysis:
It may be granted to the “party of the outraged” that
historic precedent of almost universally legalized infanticide, such as the
Spartan and Roman recognition of a parental right to expose unwanted newborns on
a mountain side, should provide very little guidance in our times of higher,
more compassionate aspirations. So, let us disregard the almost ubiquitous
similar usages in Ancient Egypt, Carthage, Judaism, pagan European tribes,
Arabian, Russian, Georgian, Chinese, Japanese, Inuit, Native American, African,
and almost any other societies with documented evidence on the subject.
But what about the “sanctity of life” in 21st
century Western civilization, particularly when it is considered through the
lens of economic value judgments? Is there a double standard for Law and
Economics? Nothing is, after all, more assured than the material bankruptcy of
a society that were to assume a collective burden of maintaining life
“equitably” to its ever-expanding medico-technical limits, as the cost of
prolonging life increases geometrically with advancing age while modern
technology allows to support life even in cases when the definition of “life”
itself is entering a disputed zone. Is an infant any more deserving of
protection than the elderly who have cast their dice and paid their debt, not
to mention made their investment in society?
What likelihood may we attribute to the realization of
potential of a newborn whose parents do not want to raise him? Society’s
seemingly moral and benevolent interference in this most basic and elementary
of human relationships is a striking parallel to what has led to the ruin of
state finances in American federalism: the “unfunded mandate,” where the
federal legislature, based on the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, clause 2 U.S.
Const.), mandates expenditures by states for which it effectively declines to
provide ways and means, thus leaving the states to square their own budgetary
circles – with known results.
As we recognize the unacceptability of taking public
charge of all unwanted children in a meaningful and morally preferable way, we
continue to shirk the tragic choice of either turning a blind eye to abortion
and infanticide or “mandating” to parents the continued existence and marginal
support of their unwanted procreation. That dilemma holds true however
justifiable or arbitrary the decision of those individuals may be on whom all
infants’ lives entirely depend in reality: their parents.
But
this would also mean to accept in political discourse the conclusion that
life does, in fact, have an economic sticker price, be it measured
in monetary resources, time, or opportunity cost – as every wrongful death
verdict inescapably is called upon to determine. It also means that this
logical reality, in all its cogency under whatever socioeconomic model or
system, must be accepted as a legitimate topic of inquiry beyond religious
and/or ideological taboos and that the general avoidance of the subject merely
stifles a constructive debate. It leads to letting the chips fall where they
may, thus turning every prematurely ended life into some “individual tragedy”
as opposed to a statistical question weighed heavily by utilitarian and other
simply realistic if not always noble considerations that we, at the current
evolution of the body politic, merely collectively refuse to deliberate and
answer.
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