People who are logically consistent can often expose the true ethical nature of their position. In January 2004, John Harris, professor of bioethics at Manchester University, did so when he suggested it may be morally acceptable to destroy babies with “defects” shortly after their birth. Harris is not a fringe extremist; he was a founder of the International Association of Bioethics, is currently a member of the U.K. government’s Human Genetics Commission, and advises Britain’s doctors as a member of the British Medical Association’s (BMA) ethics committee. Nor was he speaking at some ivory tower debate; Harris was addressing Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee on human reproductive technologies as part of their consultation process.

While avoiding questions about the types of “defects” that should lead to infanticide or the age at which children should be immune from such a threat, Harris argued that there was no moral distinction between late-term abortion and euthanizing a child with disabilities post-birth; “I don’t think infanticide is always unjustifiable. I don’t think it is plausible to think that there is any moral change that occurs during the journey down the birth canal.”1

The professor’s comments provoked an uproar. Julia Millington, political director of Pro-Life Alliance, said, “Infanticide is murder and is against the law. It is frightening to think that university students are being educated by somebody who endorses the killing of newborn babies, and equally worrying to discover that such a person is the Establishment’s ‘preferred’ bioethicist.”2 Subsequently, as appears to be the trend when the boundaries of acceptability are tested, Harris retreated: “I am not advocating infanticide nor am I proposing any changes in the law . . . I was trying to provoke a new debate.”3 Michael Wilkes, the chairman of the BMA ethics committee, likewise claimed that Harris was merely trying to stimulate debate and consistent thinking.

When Christians in the 1960s and the 1970s pointed out that this was where the slippery slope of abortion would lead, they were laughed out of the public square; surely no serious thinking person believed in infanticide. Yet within a generation, senior figures in the medical and scientific community are openly advocating it. Harris is correct: infanticide is morally consistent with late-term abortions. Harris is also consistent in seeking to test the limits: in the past he argued that people should be allowed to sell human organs to increase transplant supplies and recently advocated sex selection for babies for social reasons—“If it isn’t wrong to wish for a bonny, bouncing baby girl, why would it be wrong to make use of technology to play fairy godmother?”4

Harris’s case for infanticide is, however, only one potential extension of the status quo. One could equally argue not that infanticide is morally acceptable, but that late-term abortions are morally unacceptable. The Bible teaches that it is wrong to play the Grim Reaper. There has been the predictable initial outrage on this occasion. Yet, as each new “scandal” reduces the nation’s disgust, why should familiarity not literally breed contempt—contempt for human life?
Footnotes:
1

No parliamentary report exists of his comments. For contemporaneous coverage, see “Adviser Sparks Infanticide Debate” BBC News Website, January 26, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3429269.stm (accessed July 22, 2005), and Lois Rogers, “Genetics Guru Says Infanticide Can Be Moral,” Times Online, January 25, 2004, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-978089,00.html (accessed July 22, 2005).
2

Elizabeth Day, “Infanticide Is Justifiable in Some Cases, Says Ethics Professor,” The Telegraph Online, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/nbaby25.xml (accessed July 22, 2005), and Lois Rogers, “Genetics Guru Says Infanticide Can Be Moral,” Times Online, January 25, 2004, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-978089,00.html (accessed July 22, 2005).
3

“Advisor Sparks Infanticide Debate,” ibid.
4

Rogers, ibid.

article adapted from Kairos Journal

First Baptist Church is located in Perryville, MD  one and a half miles of Rt. 222.