Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, Suite 8, Littlegate House, St Ebbe's St, Oxford OX1 1PT, UK.
J Med Ethics. 2013 May;39(5):353-6. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2012-100640.
In a recent paper, Giubilini and Minerva argue for the moral permissibility of what they call 'after-birth abortion', or infanticide. Here I suggest that they actually employ a confusion of two distinct arguments: one relying on the purportedly identical moral status of a fetus and a newborn, and the second giving an independent argument for the denial of moral personhood to infants (independent of whatever one might say about fetuses). After distinguishing these arguments, I suggest that neither one is capable of supporting Giubilini and Minerva's conclusion. The first argument is at best neutral between permitting infanticide and prohibiting abortion, and may in fact more strongly support the latter. The second argument, I suggest, contains an ambiguity in its key premise, and can be shown to fail on either resolution of that ambiguity. Hence, I conclude that Giubilini and Minerva have not demonstrated the permissibility of infanticide, or even great moral similarity between abortion and infanticide.
在最近的一篇论文中，朱庇利尼和米内瓦为他们所谓的“产后堕胎”或杀婴辩护，认为其在道德上是允许的。在这里，我认为他们实际上混淆了两个截然不同的论点：一个论点依赖于胎儿和新生儿据称相同的道德地位，另一个论点则独立地提出否认婴儿的道德人格（与人们对胎儿的看法无关）。在区分了这些论点之后，我认为，两者都不能支持朱庇利尼和米内瓦的结论。第一个论点最多只能在允许杀婴和禁止堕胎之间保持中立，实际上可能更强烈地支持后者。第二个论点，我认为，在其关键前提中存在歧义，可以通过该歧义的两种解决方案来证明其失败。因此，我得出结论，朱庇利尼和米内瓦并没有证明杀婴的合法性，甚至没有证明堕胎和杀婴之间存在很大的道德相似性。
