Did You Catch the Week's After-Birth Abortion Debate?

How about we start aborting babies just after they are born?

After all, a babie has no more sense of its own existence just after being born than it does before leaving the womb. And, 1/3 of infants born with Down syndrome are not diagnosed until after they are born. Why should the mothers who give birth to a Down syndrome child -- or to a child with any other serious abnormality -- have to keep the child, while the mothers who find out about the condition before birth have the freedom to abort? Is that fair? Equality demands that both be allowed to make the choice.

Such is the contention of an article by Australians Alberto Giubilini of Monash University and Francesca Minerva of the University of Melbourne, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics. They were arguing from a position of logic, and later suggested they did not mean that after-birth abortions should actually happen.

When the media spotted the article, and reported on Giubilini and Minerva's article, it caused an outcry. While the pair might accept abortion, itself, as a given, it is the argument against abortion that has benefitted most from the firestorm, as people can see many of the arguments for before-birth abortions make just as much sense for "after-birth abortion."

The article hopefully helps people realize abortions just should not be allowed. They should be illegal. The life of a person should be preserved, not only after birth, but before.