The Beard Principle Revisited...

Mormanity discusses an article about euthanizing children and ties it in to abortion here...

The debate on abortion shows the value 'framing' the issue can play in winning popular support. 'Framing' a debate is where instead of demonstrating why your opponent's position is wrong, you arbitrarily define the boundaries of the debate such that it includes only the factors that support your side (thereby winning not because your opponents' arguments are invalidated, but because they're no longer 'relevant')

The pro-abortion-rights side knows that arguing scientifically that unborn fetuses are 'unalive' is a losing issue--what criteria for life could you possibly apply (brain activity, heart beat, ability to live outside the womb) that would show conclusively that babies in the womb are 'less alive' than one outside the womb? So, they 'reframed' the issue so that discussion of abortion centered only on the principle of choice (...for the mother). "Do you think women should be able to choose to do [mumble indistinctly] or do you think the choice should be taken away from them?" Naturally, when you frame the debate like that, you'll pick up lots of support from people who will always enthusiastically support the abstract concepts of 'freedom' and 'choice' for everyone, even though you'd probably lose them forever if they ever actually watched an abortion being performed one day.

Thus, the issue of what counts as life becomes 'irrelevant' to the discussion now because you've framed it to include only issues related to the pregnant mother. This, of course, is the same as framing a discussion of slavery to include ONLY the benefits and/or drawbacks slavery brings to WHITE families--but nevertheless has been the most important key towards the Democrats obtaining the support of the majority of the population on the abortion issue.

[Note, though, that--perhaps in a subconscious acknowledgement of the shaky ground they stand on--very few Democratic (or pro-choice Republican) politicians--including John Kerry--will actually defend abortion actively, but will usually instead just close their eyes and pretend it doesn't exist.]

[Note also that many Christian churches also use this same framing technique effectively by creating an arbitrary definition of what 'Christianity' is and then saying: "Oh, look! Mormons don't seem to be included...how 'bout that?"]

When/if an abortion-rights advocate mentions the children at all in a discussion of abortion, it's usually in an ad hominum attack in the form of "Pro-lifers don't care about the welfare of the unaborted children after they're born..." (Which is as logically unsound as saying 'His views on health-care reform and the economy are obviously wrong because he cheats on his wife...")

This viewpoint, though, is somewhat curious when analyzed, and I wonder if those same abortion-rights advocates have thought it out clearly:

(1) Let's accept the premise that unborn children who are 'candidates' for abortion come largely from poor families and/or from mothers who don't want children (right then, anyway...)
(2) Therefore, those children (if they are not aborted) have the potential (but not a guarantee, of course...) of having very difficult and miserable lives due to being poor and unwanted...
(3) The implication in this pro-choice argument is that those children would have been better off being dead than living in such miserable conditions.

Which begs the question...
(4) What specific conditions would a child have to be enduring before you would conclude that that child would be better off having never been born.
--and--
(5) What about children who are living under those conditions right now? Are they also better off dead? Should they be euthanized by 'compassionate' society? If not, why not?

And, as you can see from the Reuters article above, some people have started asking 'why not?'...

It's not hard to understand why people are pondering the issue:
(A) Society currently accepts that a baby at developmental stage X is 'not alive', but rather a non-living mass of organic tissue.
(B) The baby does not change in any significant scientific or physiological way by travelling down the birth canal from the uterus to the outside world.
(C) Therefore, why wouldn't the same logic and policy apply to the baby at stage X+1 than at stage X?

Therefore, we shouldn't be surprised that child euthanasia--in many different forms--will be discussed and perhaps implemented in some countries around the world. Why NOT allow a mother to decide her child's life is/will be too difficult and painful and he/she should be mercifully 'put to sleep'. If she can at point X why not also at point Y? Why NOT have a 24 hour 'grace period' after a baby is born where a new mother can contemplate her baby's chances for a 'happy' life and have him/her euthanized painlessly by the doctor? The definition of 'life' was arbitrary to begin with, so why not push it back a day or so?

I wrote about the Beard Principle here and this is as clear an application as there ever was. If you say a baby at age X isn't alive but at age Y is without a clear dividing line between the two, then how could you be surprised at someone who argues that just maybe the baby isn't 'alive' at age Y either? What argument could you make against it? You've already admitted the line between 'alive' and 'unalive' was arbitrary to begin with...

The Reuters article says the current law only allows for children to make the decision themselves, but how old does a child have to be before he/she can decide 'I want to die" for themselves? How long will it take before the law allows the possibility of the mother or some other relative--or a doctor--making that decision 'on behalf' of a young child? And if that happens, what possible argument can a pro-choicer put forward against it?