CULTURE WARS: INFANTICIDE IS JUSTIFIABLE IN SOME CASES, SAYS ETHICS PROFESSOR

By Elizabeth Day

January 25, 2004

One of British medicine's most senior advisers on medical ethics has provoked outrage by claiming that infanticide is "justifiable."

Professor John Harris, a member of the British Medical Association's ethics committee, said that it was not "plausible to think that there is any moral change that occurs during the journey down the birth canal"—suggesting that there was no moral difference between aborting a fetus and killing a baby.

The professor's comments were made during an unreported debate last week on sex selection, which was held as part of the Commons Science and Technology Committee's consultation on human reproductive technologies.

Professor Harris, who is also a professor of bioethics at the University of Manchester, was asked what moral status he accorded an embryo and he endorsed infanticide in cases of a child carrying a genetic disorder that remained undetected during pregnancy.

He replied: "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."

He declined to say up to what age he believed infanticide should be permissible.

Professor Harris, who is one of the founders of the International Association of Bioethics and the author of 15 books on the ethics of genetics, was condemned for his remarks.

Julia Millington, the political director of the ProLife Party, who posed the original question to Professor Harris, called the admission "absolutely horrifying."

"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 also a member of the ethics committee of the British Medical Association."

She continued: "Professor Harris is the Establishment's preferred bioethicist, a member of the Human Genetics Commission, and has acted as ethical consultant to the Department of Health and to numerous international bodies. In such a climate is it any wonder that a baby has been aborted in the UK at seven months for a cleft palate?"

Professor Harris said that he stood by his remarks, which he claimed had been elicited "in response to goading" from pro-life campaigners.

"People who think there is a difference between infanticide and late abortion have to ask the question: what has happened to the fetus in the time it takes to pass down the birth canal and into the world which changes its moral status? I don't think anything has happened in that time.

"It is well-known that where a serious abnormality is not picked up—when you get a very seriously handicapped or indeed a very premature newborn which suffers brain damage—that what effectively happens is that steps are taken not to sustain it on life-support.

"There is a very widespread and accepted practice of infanticide in most countries. We ought to be much more upfront about the ethics of all of this and ask ourselves the serious question: what do we really think is different between newborns and late fetuses?

"There is no obvious reason why one should think differently, from an ethical point of view, about a fetus when it's outside the womb rather than when it's inside the womb."

Professor Harris added that it was up to individual families to make a decision on the future of their child and that he was not concerned that such a course of action could lead to infanticide for cosmetic reasons.

"I don't believe there is any such thing as a slippery slope," he said. "I think that we are always on one. It is our responsibility not to avoid the moral choice.

"We shouldn't make a bad decision now because we fear it will lead us to make another bad decision in the future. We should make a good decision now and have the courage to believe we will make a good decision in the future too."

The Rev. Joanna Jepson, the Church of England curate who is going to the High Court to try to block late abortions for "trivial reasons" such as a cleft palate, said: "It is frightening to hear anyone endorsing infanticide but it is shocking when the person is responsible for teaching others."

"This affirms the need for an investigation into the practice of abortion. We have already seen, in the cleft palate case, how the law needs to provide more rigorous protection for such babies but, with medical practitioners such as John Harris at work, there is no question of our fundamental need to reaffirm the human value of every baby's life, no matter what its sex or disability."

A spokeswoman for the British Medical Association said: "These views of Professor Harris are personal views and do not reflect the views of the committee or the BMA, which is utterly opposed to the idea of infanticide."

RECTOR REFLECTS ON LEAKED DOCUMENT

An exclusive interview with the Rev. Geoffrey Chapman, rector of St. Stephen's parish in Sewickley, PA. His parish has 2,000 members and is the largest in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

By David W. Virtue January 23, 2004

VIRTUOSITY: A document that you had a hand in writing was leaked to three media outlets this past week—the Washington Post, the Religious News Service and The Guardian. What happened?

CHAPMAN: I was leading a Special Projects team to provide Alternative Episcopal Oversight to churches at risk, as recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates late last year. I came alongside the AAC to pioneer this urgent project, though I am not an AAC board member.

I had prepared a strategy paper in consultation with a group to guide churches who are seeking AEO, and in working with these churches at risk I tried to listen to two sets of voices—one was the orthodox leadership in the Anglican Communion and the other was the voice of churches who are being systematically repressed because they oppose the Robinson consecration.

VIRTUOSITY: Was it a final copy or simply a draft?

CHAPMAN: It was a seven-page draft.

VIRTUOSITY: Why was the draft prepared?

CHAPMAN: The draft was prepared for two reasons. The first was to provide encouragement and guidance to oversight churches (churches that applied for oversight) and secondly to bring that draft to the Network gathering at Plano for their consideration, adaptation and response.

VIRTUOSITY: When was this completed?

CHAPMAN: It was completed and released to oversight churches on December 28, 2003.

VIRTUOSITY: How many was it released to?

CHAPMAN: It was released to under 100.

VIRTUOSITY: To whom did it go?

CHAPMAN: It went to leaders we had been in contact with about oversight issues. Some went to rectors, others to members of the vestry.

VIRTUOSITY: When did it hit the three media?

CHAPMAN: I got a call on January 12th from Allen Cooperman of the Washington Post who would not say where he got it from. Within an hour I got a call from the Religious News Service (RNS) who also had a copy. I then got a call from the Guardian newspaper in England the next day and five other media in quick order like the Associated Press. I did not talk to the Guardian, but I did talk to the local Pittsburgh newspaper and Focus on the Family. I soon stopped responding to the calls and referred them to the AAC.

VIRTUOSITY: Did it surprise you that the document had been leaked?

CHAPMAN: Yes it was a surprise and discouraging to realize that people who had been entrusted with an important confidential strategy would put churches at risk by leaking the document.

VIRTUOSITY: It is being floated across the Internet that there was nothing essentially new in the document. Is that true?

CHAPMAN: Everything in the document had been floated at one time or another. But what was startling about the document was that it laid out a definite strategy for moving churches through the oversight/realignment process. What was also startling about the paper was that it set out a replacement jurisdiction as a possible preferred solution, if measures of international discipline failed, and a readiness, under certain extreme conditions, to engage "faithful disobedience" to canon law as a measure of last resort. Not all the orthodox agrees with these strategies. The national church takes great offense at them.

VIRTUOSITY: Do you know who leaked it?

CHAPMAN: I don't know. My guess is it went to a circle of churches who shared it with insiders who shared it with a friend who turned out not to be a friend. I do wonder about the timing of the release and to whom it was sent. It was clearly designed to disrupt the formation of the new Network in Plano, Texas. It failed.

VIRTUOSITY: Do you think 815, the church's national headquarters might have gotten a copy and leaked it?

CHAPMAN: Because of the timing, I have wondered. But I don't know.

VIRTUOSITY: What of the memo itself?

CHAPMAN: The memo was a work in progress under discussion and not yet seen or affirmed by any of our bishops, though it implied otherwise. That implication was a mistake, premature, and I regret it. It had only provisional status within the AAC, as it was the work of a sub-committee, and had not been seen by the board. It had no status within the Network, as the Network had not yet even been formed.

VIRTUOSITY: What is your objective?

CHAPMAN: We are working to protect hundreds of orthodox churches in revisionist dioceses whose witness is being extinguished by those charged to uphold and spread the faith. With surprising and troubling frequency bishops who ironically have championed tolerance and diversity in past decades are proving decidedly intolerant of those who hold to the historic faith and the values of the bible and the Anglican Communion.

VIRTUOSITY: How serious is the problem?

CHAPMAN: Clergy are being threatened, vows of allegiance to the Episcopal Church are being exacted (even while international excommunications are rising), and canons are being misused to take over dissenting biblically orthodox churches. It is religious persecution, widespread, and it must be opposed. I am heartened to see at the end of the week that the Network is determined to work for Adequate Episcopal Oversight, as is the American Anglican council, under the guidance of the Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

VIRTUOSITY: Thank you Rev. Chapman.