Putting Infants Down Like Dogs – First Things

The Charlie Gard tragedy has renewed public advocacy for legalizing infanticide. Writing in the New York Times earlier this month, Gary Comstock recounted the tragic death of his son, Sam, who was born with a terminal genetic condition. Many years later, Comstock believes that his son should have been killed instead of being taken off of life support:

We should empathize with Comstock in his grief. But emotion must not tempt us to reject the venerable principles of human exceptionalism. Babieseven those with dire prospectsare precious human beings whose lives have intrinsic dignity and inherent moral value beyond that of any nonhuman.

Acceptance of Comstocks premisethat parents should kill babies who are likely to diewould be culturally catastrophic. It would lead to the legalization of murder. At Nuremberg, the German infanticide program was deemed a crime against humanity. Lets not abandon that wisdom.

The death of his son is not the only motive driving Comstocks advocacy. Comstock is a moral philosopher who rejects human exceptionalism and embraces animal rights and transhumanism. From his webpage:

Judging by Comstocks Times column, it seems these practical implications include legalizing infanticide. Indeed, in my decades of work around issues such as euthanasia, utilitarian bioethics, animal rights, transhumanism, and other associated agendas, I have found that the more one rejects human exceptionalism, the more likely one is to declare that immoral and (still) illegal wrongslike infanticideare virtuous.

The evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne is an even more vivid case in point. Coyne authors ablog titled Why Evolution is True, where he extrapolates evolutionary theoryinto highly questionable conclusions of morality, philosophy, and ethics. Using Comstocks pro-infanticide column as his launching pad, Coyne argues that if we can abort a fetus diagnosed with serious health issues, we should also be allowed to kill born babies with those conditions. He then makes the predictable claim that since we euthanize our sick pets, we should also be permitted to kill seriously ill and disabled babies:

Coyne then brings in anti-human exceptionalism:

Contrary to Coyne, human exceptionalism need not rely on religion to demonstrate its validity. But heres the germane point: To reject human exceptionalism is essentially to claim that we are just another animal in the forest, which leads to the logical conclusion that killing should be an allowable remedy to illness and disability. This view has already infected the Netherlands, where babies born with serious disabilities and terminal conditions are allowed by winked-at practicenot lawto be killed by doctors.

Many no longer believe that human life has ultimate, objective value simply because it is human. With human exceptionalism cast aside, our new prime directive is to eliminate suffering, and eliminating the sufferer is now advocated in high places as a moral good rather than a pernicious harm. As a result, dying and disabled babies are in mortal danger of consignment into a killable caste that canliterallybe put down like dogs.

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institutes Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant to the Patients Rights Council. His most recent book isCulture of Death: The Age of Do Harm Medicine.

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Putting Infants Down Like Dogs - First Things