'Babies are not real people': Female Oxford academic claims doctors 'should have the right to KILL unwanted or disabled infants'

• Philosopher and medical ethicist Francesca Minerva argues that killing a newborn is little different to aborting it in the womb
• Even a healthy baby could have its life snuffed out if the mother decides she can't afford to look after it, Dr Minerva suggested
• Doctor receives death threats and hate calls telling her to 'burn in hell'

By Fiona Macrae

Last updated at 10:27 AM on 1st March 2012

Doctors should have the right to kill newborn babies because they are disabled, too expensive or simply unwanted by their mothers, an academic with links to Oxford University has claimed.
Francesca Minerva, a philosopher and medical ethicist, argues a young baby is not a real person and so killing it in the first days after birth is little different to aborting it in the womb.
Even a healthy baby could have its life snuffed out if the mother decides she can’t afford to look after it, the article published by the British Medical Journal group states.
The journal’s editor has defended the piece, saying the publication’s role is to present well-reasoned arguments, rather than promote one particular moral view.
But the article has angered other ethicists, peers and campaigners. They have described the call for legalised infanticide as chilling and an ‘inhumane defence of child destruction’.
The doctor, a research associate at Oxford, has received death threats and hate calls telling her that she will 'burn in hell', and she said the last few days since publication have been 'the worst of my life'.
Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Dr Minerva and co-author Alberto Giubilini, a University of Milan bioethicist, argue that ‘after-birth abortion’ should be permissible in all cases in which abortion is.
They state that like an unborn child, a newborn has yet to develop hopes, goals and dreams and so, while clearly human, is not a person – someone with a moral right to life.

In contrast, parents, siblings and society have aims and plans that could be affected by the arrival of the child and their interests should come first.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2108433/Doctors-right-kill-unwanted-disabled-babies-birth-real-person-claims-Oxford-academic.html#ixzz1nrdcBVz5

Controversial: Francesca Minerva says doctors should have

 the right to kill newborn babies because they are disabled, 

 too expensive or simply unwanted by their mothers