Psychohistorian comments on Closet survey #1 - Less Wrong

53 [deleted] 14 March 2009 07:51AM

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Comment author: CronoDAS 14 March 2009 11:07:01PM 47 points [-]

Here's something else I can't normally say in public:

Infants are not people because they do not have significant mental capacities. They should be given the same moral status as, say, dogs. It's acceptable to euthanize one's pet dog for many reasons, so it should be okay to kill a newborn for similar reasons.

In other words, the right to an abortion shouldn't end after the baby is born. Infants probably become more like people than like dogs some time around two years of age, so it should be acceptable to euthanize any infant less than two years old under any circumstances in which it would be acceptable to euthanize a dog.

Comment author: Psychohistorian 08 May 2011 12:00:42AM 2 points [-]

Given that substantial variance may exist between individuals, isn't birth (or within a day of birth) a rather efficient bright line? I fail to see the gain to permitting more widespread infanticide, even taking your argument as generally correct.

Comment author: blacktrance 11 January 2014 02:36:29AM 0 points [-]

Given that substantial variance may exist between individuals, isn't birth (or within a day of birth) a rather efficient bright line?

Substantial variance exists between individuals, but it's not such that month-old babies are different enough from fetuses to merit legal protection.

I fail to see the gain to permitting more widespread infanticide

Medical research, perhaps?