The killing of newborns has, to the best of historical knowledge, been an integral part of every pagan culture. It should come as no surprise that, as our own culture becomes increasingly detached from its Christian heritage, the practice of infanticide should reappear as a socially acceptable and ethically defensible custom. After all, abortion has already won overwhelming approval, and the only difference between abortion and infanticide is the location of the child, i.e. inside or outside the womb.
Modern historians point out that infanticide flourished in areas where food was scarce (e.g. China and Inuit communities), that traditional patriarchal societies practiced female infanticide, and that disabled or deformed infants were routinely killed in almost every culture that has been studied. Some societies have even legislated infanticide, as is the case with the famous Patria Potestas law of ancient Rome. In Rome a father had absolute authority over the life and death of his children, and it was customary for a basin full of water to be present in the birthing room to drown the newborn child if the father so decided. In Sparta, the decision to keep a newborn child was left to a public magistrate. A notable exception were the Jews; Tacitus comments in his Histories that, interestingly, the Jews tended to raise all their young.
The unavoidable clash between Christian morals and pagan culture led finally to a complete ban on infanticide by emperor Valentinian in 374 AD. This triumph came not without a struggle. In fact, as Fr. Hardon noted in a lecture on contraception, the persecution of early Christians was generally not because they refused to offer incense to the emperor, as is often assumed, but because they refused to contracept, abort, or expose their infants. Thus it was then, as it is now, a struggle between the culture of life and the culture of death.
Today, as in ancient times, the Church of Christ fulfills her mandate to proclaim the Gospel of Life to the ends of the earth. Infanticide continues to be practiced with impunity in regions of Asia, especially in China and India. In these two countries “son preference” has decimated the female population, resulting in the “missing women” crisis of the early nineties. The gender ratio, usually 994 women for every 1000 men, reaches lows of 800 women to 1000 men in some Indian states, where sex-selective abortions and female infanticide are commonplace. Government censuses have revealed that over 60 million women are missing in Asia. It is estimated that by the year 2050 there will be a surplus of 90 million men in China alone. (Many have already written on the troubles to be expected from this exceptionally large population of young hedonist bachelors.)
While “son preference” is absent from North American culture, where sons and daughters are aborted at equal rates, the infanticidal mentality is not. Infanticide, where practiced, is rare or at least discreet. Remnants of western Judeo-Christian ethics, and the widespread and universal availability of abortion and contraception have rendered infanticide repulsive and unnecessary. However, the idea of infanticide is gaining favor, especially in academic circles.
The reconsideration of infanticide by western post-modern culture can be attributed to at least two causes. First, prominent bioethicists and physicians are beginning to promote it with unabashed and menacing urgency. And second, widespread abortion, especially partial birth abortion, encourages an infanticidal mentality. The gruesome and impious practice of infanticide is subtly but rapidly becoming the next battlefront in the war between the culture of life and the culture of death in North America.
A brief consideration of the philosophy of these bioethicists reveals fundamental confusion and a surprising shallowness. In the minds of these so-called experts, personhood is independent of human nature, and utilitarian ethics should prevail. For well-known Princeton ethicist Peter Singer, an adult cat has more of a right to life than a newborn human infant. For Singer, simply being human does not imply a right to life. What gives rise to fundamental rights, like right to life, is not being but having certain attributes like self-awareness or a desire to survive. Logically, then, higher animals like cats and primates enjoy the same rights as adult humans, while the rights of infants to live depend on extrinsic circumstances, such as whether they are wanted by their parents or can be afforded by society. Singer rightly points out that no metaphysical change in being occurs to the infant as it passes through the birth canal. Granting that abortion is ethically permissible, as he does, it is eminently logical to extend the abortive vulnerability to infants who have already been born.
Partial birth abortion laws encourage the acceptance of infanticide. This is one of the reasons given by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) for outlawing the practice in the United States. In a brief filed in the U.S. federal courts, the ACLJ contends that the government has a “vital and compelling interest” in preventing the spread of the practice of abortion into infanticide. “Partial-birth procedures represent the beachhead of abortion's assault on postnatal life, the bridge between abortion and infanticide,” the brief states. “Absent strong legal barriers and vigorous societal condemnation, partial-birth procedures open the way to legal infanticide.”
If Canadians already hear very little about abortion from the media, they hear nothing at all about infanticide. Yet there is well-documented evidence to prove that infanticide is practiced in some Canadian hospitals and many abortion clinics. Nurses and technicians from abortion clinics have reported that failed abortions, where the baby survives, are routinely followed by abandoning, drowning or otherwise killing the newborn. Infanticide is no longer merely a dream of pro-abortion academia, it is instead a quickly spreading reality, a nightmare already coming true.
In addition to infanticide, the insatiable appetite of the biotech industry has given rise to both cloning for experimentation and organ “harvesting”, as well as the horrific but undeniable market for fetal body parts that drives the partial birth abortion industry.
The culture of death wears many masks. Infanticide is just a new mask on the same selfish “non serviam” of Satan. It is another reason to worry for our country, for, as Donum Vitae makes clear, “When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined.” (Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae III) In these times, however, we remember the voice of Christ and find hope in His words, “Be not afraid!” And with prayerful confidence, we beg for the courage and wisdom to continue the fight that has already been won.
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