A new so called research paper by an Italian philosopher Alberto Giubilini and an ethicist Dr. Francesca Minerva "After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?", has been published on line by the Journal of Medical Ethics.
The essence of the argument in the study is the claim that newborn babies--just like children in the womb--are not yet persons and therefore lack both rights and interests. They assert that "after-birth abortion" should be permissible if the parents believe it is in their best interest
This new attack which can properly be described as a proposal to murder newborn babies must be firmly resisted and it highlights the need to establish both the right to life of unborn and newborn babies, unequivocally in international law
The abstract makes the following claims:
Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.
Essentially the study uses pro-abortion arguments to support infanticide. This disturbing concept asserts that babies in the womb and newborn babies are only "potential persons" and that their lives both can be terminated for the same reasons.
The chilling reasoning used in the study includes the following extracts:
"We claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk."
"Actual people's well-being could be threatened by the new (even if healthy) child requiring energy, money and care which the family might happen to be in short supply of. Sometimes this situation can be prevented through an abortion, but in some other cases this is not possible. In these cases, since non-persons have no moral rights to life, there are no reasons for banning after-birth abortions."
