JME editors defend publication of "After-birth abortion" paper

Further to my previous post, in a blog post yesterday, the editors of JME defended the publication of the paper following a "storm of opposition" (referring mainly to comments on The Blaze blog post), closing with:

...What the response to this article reveals, through the microscope of the web, is the deep disorder of the modern world. Not that people would give arguments in favour of infanticide, but the deep opposition that exists now to liberal values and fanatical opposition to any kind of reasoned engagement.

So, killing babies is a liberal value? As for "opposition to ... reasoned engagement", they got lots of reasoned response (eg. the National Catholic Register). They just cherry picked the angriest comments to justify their "defence". And there's a virtual tsunami of 'reasoned engagement' in the comment thread to the JME's own blog post - eg. this short one:

Savulescu is correct, our society gets overly hysterical and can't handle intellectual discussion on moral ethics. I long for a society where you could freely and calmly discuss genocide. Like, say, Germany 1933.

"After-birth abortion"

Published in the Journal of Medical Ethics:  "After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?"

ABSTRACT
Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled. ...

CONCLUSIONS
If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn.

National Catholic Register:

Here’s the thing - they’re right. If you accept their premises, they’re absolutely right.
... It’s almost a pro-life argument in that it highlights the absurdity of the pro-abortion argument.

Medical "ethics"? That's a long way down that slippery slope!

[Via]

Update:  See next post.

Climate debate - skeptics are winning (the data say so)

Who Are You Going To Believe – The Government Climate Scientists or The Data?

We check the main predictions of the climate models against the best and latest data. ... the climate models got all their major predictions wrong.

Conclusions ...
1.The climate models are fundamentally flawed. Their assumed threefold amplification by feedbacks does not in fact exist.

2.The climate models overestimate temperature rises due to CO2 by at least a factor of three.

FakeGate

Catching up on more climate hanky-panky (cribbed directly from FOS email):

FakeGate (James Delingpole's designation)

The possibly criminal misdeeds of Dr Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute and Chairman of the AGU’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics (sic!), in trying to undermine the reputation of the Heartland Institute, have been all over the blogosphere. Ken Gregory has summarised events on the Friends of Science website ... I am not going to add to that. If you are not up to date on the ethics boss having had his hand in the cookie jar (his arm, some say), you should consult the background at WUWT , or the dedicated site <http://fakegate.org/>.

Previous Heartland correspondence with Gleick is here.

Gleick’s revealing 2007 testimony for the US Senate is here.

DeSmogBlog, the HuffPost and ThinkProgress assisted in distributing the unchecked allegations and forged document.

An interesting record of the manipulations by DeSmogBlog propagandists is here.

"Systematic fraud" in IPCC's 5th Assessment Report

Expert reviewer Alec Rawls at WUWT:

... My training is in economics where we are very familiar with what statisticians call “the omitted variable problem” (or when it is intentional, “omitted variable fraud”). ...This problem is manifest at the very highest level of AR5, and is built into each step of its analysis.

Like everyone else who participated in this review, I agreed not to cite, quote or distribute the draft. The IPCC also made a further request, which reviewers were not required to agree to, that we “not discuss the contents of the FOD in public fora such as blogs.”

Given what I found—systematic fraud—it would not be moral to honor this un-agreed to request....

Harper-hating media

BC Blue comments on the media frenzy over the Robocall "scandal".

And today Andrew Coyne climbed aboard the "conspiracy" bandwagon.  Note that he's now 'coyned' the term "Robocon" as a substitute for Robocall. Too cute.

It apparently hasn't occurred to Coyne that the "conspiracy" here is that first Liberals and now NDP partisans are coming out of the woodwork to claim they've been Robocalled by Conservatives.  It's a convenient, risk-free smear they can perpetuate till the cows come home.

Update: From BC Blue - NDP MP Pat ("Big Mouth") Martin being sued for defamation

Ugly headlines

Above the fold on the front page of today's Vancouver Sun:

Mobile euthanasia - Six units will travel around the country to help the Dutch die at home.

Six "mobile euthanasia units" will become available in the Netherlands starting Thursday, to zip around this tiny and remarkably liberal country to help Dutch citizens facing an "unbearable" and "hopeless" medical situation die in their homes.

A group of prominent citizens, meanwhile, has been lobbying since 2009 for a major expansion in the scope of Dutch assisted-death laws, allowing older people who are "tired of living" but have no serious medical problem to end it all without the involvement of a physician. ...

Learning classroom politics - BCTF president Susan Lambert discusses her union on the verge of a strike, and a scolding that changed her life. 

The BCTF is arguably one of the most militant, radical unions in the country.  Susan Lambert's benign granny looks belie her militantly radical leftist stance and leadership of the BCTF.