Raise Your Hand If You're Surprised

Since we enthusiastically kill our children right up until the time they're born, surely no one is surprised that we should boldly take the next convenient step, and leave some of them to die after they've been born. So many very premature babies die anyway, and so many others develop all sorts of disabilities that make raising and caring for them so difficult, time consuming, expensive and, well, just so not-what-I-signed-up-for.

Reuters reports:

LONDON - Premature babies born before 22 weeks gestation should not be given intensive care treatment to keep them alive, according to a report released in Britain on Wednesday.

Despite medical advances in prolonging life, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics said the chances of an infant surviving after less than 22 weeks in the womb are very slim and that they often develop severe disabilities.

In guidelines issued to help doctors and parents make difficult decisions about the care of extremely premature infants, the report recommended parents of babies born after 23 should be consulted and have the final say in whether intensive care is given to their baby.

Refreshing, is it not, that parents are still to be consulted after 23 weeks, and left to make the decision as to whether to provide medical treatment or not.

Last week the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments in Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, cases which present the question whether the Constitution of the United States (which, of course, never mentions abortion) prevents Congress from outlawing the practice of partially delivering a perfectly healthy baby, and then killing it by sucking its brain out.

This is a form of mass insanity that surely must run its course sooner or later, must it not?