Why Not Abortion AFTER Birth?

Infanticide apparently has been around for all of human history. See here. However, Christianity has uniformly opposed infanticide. One could expect a culture receding from Christian belief to return again to child killing. That is the essential meaning of abortion, and explains why the Catholic Church has always opposed the practice.

With pre-birth abortion established, certain medical ethicists are now openly arguing for after birth abortion. According to these ethicists (following Peter Singer), overt infanticide is ethically permissible. The authors define a fetus or newborn baby as only a "potential" person and flatly state that:

however weak the interests of actual people can be, they will always trump the alleged interest of potential people to become actual ones, because this latter interest amounts to zero.

The differences between a secular, utilitarian mindset and Christianity become unmistakable at this point. Christianity views a fetus and a new-born as full and actual human beings, no matter their medical or health condition. They must be protected by law and society no less than any other "actual" person.

This issue came home to me on reading the Pope's discussion in Ch. 7 of Jesus of Nazareth, of the parable of the Good Samaritan (at p. 197).

The Christian perspective on the "neighbor" is that I become a neighbor to the other, whom I identify as myself. In other words, I think of the other person as another me. "The question is about me. I have to become the neighbor, and when I do, the other person counts for me 'as myself.'" Ibid. This is a stronger identification than when I consider someone in my own familial or social group to be my neighbor. To see myself in another, in all others, erases all social boundaries. If I identify any other as myself, I became neighbor to all; no restriction may properly be drawn as to the essential dignity of human beings, including the asserted distinction between "potential" and "actual" human beings. This is a core Christian truth.

We all need to pray that God may help us to maintain our grasp on this (Christian) truth in the face of the drumbeat that is sounding toward active infanticide and euthanasia. Otherwise, the killing of abortion, as horrible as it has been at 50 million strong, will mark just the beginning of our killing.