Should we have published this article about killing babies?
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Should we have published this article about killing babies?
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If you are an editor of a journal you might worry about publishing a paper that discusses killing babies. The latest issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics has an article by two academics arguin
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Should we have published this article about killing babies?
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Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 1/3/2012 2:35 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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*Moderator*
Posts: 682
First: 17/11/2008 Last: 19/5/2013 |
If you are an editor of a journal you might worry about publishing a paper that discusses killing babies. The latest issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics has an article by two academics arguing academically the following: |
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Re: Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 1/3/2012 4:35 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 5
First: 13/3/2010 Last: 1/3/2012 |
I think you can read this paper two ways. People who are loudly complaining about it have presumably read it at face value and concluded that it advocates infanticide. Alternatively, it is a more subtle argument against any form of abortion, by its moral comparison to infanticide. I have a personal suspicion that this is what the authors originally intended, and will be very pleased about the moral outrage their paper has whipped up. In a different league, but Jonathon Swift's "A modest proposal" apparently caused a huge storm when it was published in 1729 -- nothing really changes. Either way, I don't see a reason not to publish the paper. If the arguments it presents are so obviously wrong, then either ignore the paper, or present the obvious counterarguments and move on. Public debate is stifled enough as it is, and I applaud the editor for sticking up for the principles of freedom of debate in the academic community. Noone is going to harm a baby on the basis of this paper, so I can't see any sensible argument against publishing it. Olly |
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Re: Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 1/3/2012 5:23 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 1/3/2012 Last: 1/3/2012 |
I do not have and would never want to have any power of cenorship over your content. That said, I think it could have been written so as to avoid misinterpretations by some of the non-medical audience. I've seen your article linked at several political sites, all of which missed the point. Especially here in the U.S., abortion has become more of a political football than a rational discussion of medicine, science, philosophy, or ethics. The people that failed to fully comprehend your editorial were quick to use it to reinforce their already strong notions that there is no difference between dispensing a 'morning after' pill to a victim of a violent rape, and a partial birth abortion. There's is a black & white world; a world where everything is absolutely right, or absolutely wrong (and of course, they are always absolutely right.) I know that most of your readers are not like the willfully ignorant hypersensitive authoritarians that used your post as more political cannon fodder for their stated goal of government prohibition of all abortions at all times, even in the case of rape, incest, or clear danger to the health of the mother. |
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Re: Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 1/3/2012 8:55 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2042
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 20/5/2013 |
On the principle that one should read an article before criticising it, I looked for this paper from the "latest issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics", ie March 2012. I can't see an article whose title looks anything like that which is described, the editorial ("The concise argument") says nothing about it and none of the abstracts dal with abortion or killing babies. The same is true of the February issue. What am I missing? May we have a reference or at least an abstract, to ensure rational discussion?
JOhn |
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Re: Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 1/3/2012 10:06 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 5
First: 13/3/2010 Last: 1/3/2012 |
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/02/22/medethics-2011-100411.full |
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Re: Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 2/3/2012 7:06 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2
First: 2/3/2012 Last: 2/3/2012 |
I have been attempting to read this article dispassionately today to work out what I do not like about it other than the fact I find it personally repugnant. I do not agree that the article should have been published in its current state, as I find it ambiguous and certain statements made within it are unsubstantiated. And yes, I am educated well enough to read and critique articles. I understand that the authors are attempting to create a parallel between early and late-term (post birth) killing, but I consider this paper to be confounded by the examples used which serve only to open other ethical dilemmas (such as how much impairment is necessary to warrant a life unlivable?). Of course, part of their argument is that the baby can be discarded simply because it is unwanted. If that is the case, does it really matter about how disabled the child might be? I found the lack of substantiation for certain comments, such as, 'Many parents would choose to have an abortion if they find out, through genetic prenatal testing, that their fetus is affected by TCS,' to be unworthy of a scholarly article. Frankly, I would mark my students down for making such statements without supporting evidence and would expect peer reviewers to pick up on such deficits. 'Abortions at an early stage are the best option, for both psychological and physical reasons,' is another unsupported statement made in the conclusion. Refusing to supply references to these statements, to my mind, makes the article questionable. Perhaps the authors do have appropriate evidence but have failed to make reference to them. Hardly a good example of a rigorous paper. I also found the fact that despite there being brief mention of The Netherlands' stance on post-birth abortion, there was no explanation of the effects, positive or negative, on the families that have chosen this path disconcerting and frustrating. Supporting evidence from an existing model would support the stance that 'after-birth abortion should be permissable.' The notion of post-birth abortion is one I have grappled with personally being the parent of a special needs child, so I accept my bias. Perhaps, surprisingly, I do encourage and follow discussion and research on this topic having vast personal experience with the problems faced by special needs children and their families. However, I found this article frustrating to read due to the lack of adequate references and not up to the usual standard I would expect from a highly regarded journal. So, no, for those reasons, I think it should not have been published.
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Re: Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 2/3/2012 9:15 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2042
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 20/5/2013 |
Thank you, Omadge! But I'm still puzzled. Going to the Journal of Medical Etrhics via google takes you to the Current issue page: http://jme.bmj.com/content/current That's the "latest", the March issue. It's not there. then this gets a bit like the man on the stair, because it's not there either in the February issue, or the January one, which would be silly, as the article wasn't accepted until the end of Jan. Was this an online-only publication? I'll give it a read. John PS The other day, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today - I wish, I wish, he'd go away! |
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Re: Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 2/3/2012 9:55 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2042
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 20/5/2013 |
Of course it should have been published. In that it equates pre-term abortion and post-partum euthanasia, the paper could be seen as one that is on the side of the 'life' campaigners, as it enforces a rethink of attitudes to the first procedure. But as a guide to future policy, it doesn't have a chance. The authors use as part of their argument the complete dependency of a new-born child, which they argue lacks any self determination, so that it cannot be deprived of a future that it dos not have, of its own. Humans have evolved to give birth to such babies in exchange for large brains, and part of the Darwinian deal is an enormous compulsion to nuture them, similar to imprinting in non-human parents. That compulsion is triggered by the baby's appearance and responses, and occurs very quickly after birth. In the abscence of a baby showing those stimuli, abortion becomes acceptable to many where euthanasia does not. I have used 'euthanasia' where the authors explicitly preferred "after-birth abortion". I think that euphemism shows how difficult it is for even dispassionate philosophers to consider killing babies. John |
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Re: Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 2/3/2012 12:18 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1
First: 2/3/2012 Last: 2/3/2012 |
Why not?! Hitler's speeches still get published, right?! I just need to take this of my chest: are we the so called "modern civilization" if we still use as arguments what was common in the "ancient civilizations" (Roman, Greek, Incas, and so on?!)?! How modern are we?! If freedom is so important, why discuss the "killing" of that freedom for newborn babies (or even fetus!)?... How can we be "modern" if we are not able to recognize a fetus as a person, or as a person to be?! Because in the "ancient civilizations" a pregnant woman carried a person and was charged, and killed, if discovered that she aborted or killed her newborn!!! If we use the example of "ancient civilizations" as a way to "excuse" the killing of any kind of person, why don´t we used the same example to defend and protect life?! Hippocrates claimed that a medicine man (woman) should preserve, protect and defend life, even of enemies... In modern medicine that became a blur, or a grey area, since we began to catalogue life in order to adjust it to our financial needs... It's all about the money! Was in the past and still is the main reason to kill or ignore suffering of someone... |
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Re: Should we have published this article about killing babies?
posted at 2/3/2012 2:41 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2042
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 20/5/2013 |
Godwin's Law says that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1". That it has occured so early bodes ill for the future of the thread. Tina, The original article contains not a single reference to Hitler, ancient or modern civilisation, the Greeks, the Romans or even the Incas, let alone Hippocrates. Why did you introduce them? John |
Forums » Open clinical » General clinical » Should we have published this article about killing babies?
Of course for that debate to take place in the Journal of Medical Ethics, many of whose readers, doctors and health care workers as well as philosophers, may well disagree, perhaps strongly, with the paper’s arguments, we needed first to make sure that the paper, like any other submitted to the Journal, was of sufficient academic quality for us to publish; and the normal way in which we determine this is to invite academics in relevant disciplines to review the paper critically for us, so that we can eventually make an informed decision about whether or not to publish it, either in its original or (as in this case) a form revised in the light of the reviewers’ reports.
Satisfied by the reviewers’ reports and my further editorial review that the paper was of sufficient academic quality to be published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, and being charged with making the decision as an Editor with no conflict of interest in the matter, since unlike my fellow-editors in the relatively small world of international academic medical ethics I have never met the authors, and indeed personally do not agree with the conclusions of their paper, I decided that it was appropriate to publish it in the interest of academic freedom of debate.
So should we have published it?