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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24381 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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Following up on the surrogacy story shared by @MollieTheMare last week, I present to you yet another man-made horror beyond our comprehension:

https://www.lifenews.com/2026/09/14/netherlands-euthanizes-disabled-2-year-old-child/

Another link if you think a pro-life website isn't a trustworthy source: https://nltimes.nl/2026/09/09/first-ever-case-euthanasia-young-child-2-handled-well-dutch-committee

"The doctor and the parents decided to actively end the child’s life after concluding that the supposed suffering could not be relieved, according to the Assessment Committee for Late-Term Abortion and Termination of Life in Newborns and Children Ages 1 to 12."

My first thought while reading this article, apart from general horror at what was done, was "The WHAT committee?" My second thought was to Philip K. Dick's now officially prophetic short story, The Pre-Persons. That's right, if you didn't know, the father of cyberpunk and author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (i.e. Blade Runner) and We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (i.e. Total Recall) was anti-abortion (emphasis mine):

“Oh, good Lord,” his mother exclaimed, on seeing him. “What in the name of God have you been doing?”

He said stammeringly, “I — saw — the abortion — truck.”

“And you thought it was for you?” Mutely, he nodded.

“Listen, Walter,” Cynthia Best said, kneeling down and taking hold of his trembling hands, “I promise, your dad and I both promise, you’ll never be sent to the County Facility. Anyhow you’re too old. They only take children up to twelve.”

Infanticide is nothing new in human history. And while Christian societies haven't been free from killing infants en masse via exposure, abortion, and other means, they have been (as far as I can tell) effectively the only societies in human history to even attempt to abolish the practices. Philip K. Dick, for example, was Episcopalian (though he shifted towards a more Gnostic view of Christianity towards the end of his life).

I guess I'm mostly curious to see everyone's reactions to this story, but also to my assertion that opposition to these things is almost exclusively a Christian thing. I'd be curious to see some secular humanist or other arguments against them, though I strongly suspect that they will be smuggling in some very Christian assumptions without realizing it. After all, to quote Leon Trotsky: "We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life."

Once again pro-life people post a scaremongering story about "Infanticide" and when I actually read the article it's about making what I regard to be a humane decision to end the suffering of an incredibly brain damaged child that couldn't live without invasive medical care. My filter bubble is reinforced and I will probably not waste my time reading details and just assume pro-lifers are omitting crucial context the next time this happens. Y'all should spend less time freaking each other about committee names and more time simulating your opponents viewpoints so you can select examples of overreach that might generate support from people who don't already agree with you.

What happens when someone decides the humane decision is sparing the world of you?

The essential point of it has always been that humanity is not equipped to render such a judgment. Legally protecting murder in narrow circumstances will inevitably progress to legally protecting murder in broad circumstances. Early abortion became allowing late abortion; murdering unborn children for medical concerns became murdering unborn children for the convenience of it all; murdering unborn children became murdering viable and crowning children, and now, though I am certain it has happened before, as was said would happen, an infant has been murdered "for cause" but what constitutes cause will not be left narrow. This played out exactly as was said would happen with physician-facilitated suicide: it would not stop with those in palliative care, it would and did expand to the psychologically unwell, and the medical systems of countries such as Canada would and do now recommend it.

A narrow but still arbitrarily qualified definition of whether a life is worth living will not stay narrow, and it hasn't.

(1) if I'm constitutionally (e.g. by way of brain damage, retardation, locked-in coma or otherwise) incapable of voicing my protest, then I would hope someone makes that decision

(2) if you write your ethics based on asking people "what if it happened to you", you will get rules like death penalty for especially ego-shattering insults.

There are tons of cases where real world institutions go partway down a "slippery slope", reap the benefits, and then engage in political contestation as the tradeoffs emerge. For example, building a state of any kind could be a slippery slope to communist dictatorship, and it is true that in some places at some times states have "slid" into becoming genocidal communist dictatorships (as some anarchists predicted). Are our only choices then anarchy or inevitable communist dictatorship? I am sure that many conservatives think the current American state has grown too large or perhaps "slid" towards communist dictatorship, and yet very few people endorse completely eliminating the possibility of this slide ever occuring by totally dismantling the American government and returning the continent to natural stateless anarchy. Here they trust that through normal political contestation we can stake out a position on the slippery slope of state power without becoming a communist dictatorship.

I think there are great reductions in suffering in letting terminal cancer patients die on their own terms and probably also to letting severely brain damaged two year olds with mucus filled lungs die as well. I don't like the state facilitating the death of severely depressed healthy people and if I were Canadian I would vote against that. But I see no reason why you can't have "cancer patients and people with profound chronic pain are allowed to opt into death" and "physically healthy 25 year old can't" as a policy.

I strongly suspect that pro-life people are not in agreement with me that it's valuable to reduce human suffering by allowing elderly cancer patients or severely brain damaged two year olds to die less painfully and find this repugnant on religious grounds. Instead of straightforwardly arguing that I should share their objections, they seem intent on persuading me that unlike many other policy issues where there are both benefits and potential overreach, this is a unique case where the outcome is inevitable. There are some jurisdictions that have slid towards abortion laws I think are objectionable and others where I think there have been long run equilibria I find pretty acceptable. The U.S. has restricted access in the past decade in many jurisdictions, this all seems like the normal process of contesting a policy with tradeoffs not an inevitable slide.

Others have very kindly pointed out that the child did not have a life fit for a child, and that there was no hope for a cure. Thanks.

Well, I've seen a baby with icthyosis vulgaris during my career (Google that at your peril), and when you're that fucked, and end to the misery is in everyone's best interests.

It is worth noting that medical technology has, for a while, allowed to us to keep a lot of people alive, but not alive, if you get what I mean.

I may be too retarded to get it, but this is joke right? Just trying to confirm

No.

[...] Assessment Committee for Late-Term Abortion and Termination of Life in Newborns and Children Ages 1 to 12 [...]
My first thought while reading this article, apart from general horror at what was done, was "The WHAT committee?" My second thought was to Philip K. Dick's now officially prophetic short story, The Pre-Persons.

There is no pleasing the pro-lifers, is there?

In this case, the story seems obviously that rather than simply blanket-allowing abortions until birth (like AK, CO, MD, MA, MI, MN, NJ, NM, OR, VT do), the Dutch decided that a late-term abortion was basically the same as infanticide and should follow the same MAID standards -- e.g., is it in the patient's best interests to die (as opposed to merely being in his legal guardians interests).

The Dutch have generally legalized MAID for all age brackets, and the board responsible for Late-Term till age 12 exists because here the patients can not independently request MAID, and are likely subject to stricter standards. Other committees exist for older people! If a competent adult tells you that they want to die, that is tremendous evidence in favor of letting them die. With a three-year-old, the evidence is much weaker, and their legal guardians might be biased by considerations besides the best interests of the child.

As understandable from @ToaKraka's extensive quotes, this was not a case of "for economic or social reasons, parents kinda wished they had aborted their kid, and the local law did not give a fuck about children so they allowed them to have their kid killed". To reiterate his quote:

It quickly became apparent that the child had suffered severe brain damage, resulting in severe cerebral palsy and a visual impairment. This was compounded by frequent and severe epileptic seizures, which were largely unresponsive to medication. This left the child restless and unable to sleep for long periods. The child also had mucus in its lungs, which made breathing and swallowing very difficult.

[...] The extensive brain damage had severe consequences for the child's functioning. There was a very severe developmental delay with an estimated developmental age of six weeks, while the child was nearly two years old.

If someone kept a dog under these conditions instead of putting it down, I would argue that it was animal cruelty. For someone who is not a speciecist, there is no good reason to treat humans worse than non-human animals. Instead, it is the Christians with their sacredness of human life doctrine who argue for prolonging the suffering as much as modern medicine will allow, which becomes more problematic as modern medicine progresses.

As always, I could take either of at least three sides.

  • Turbolibertarian "children should be the property of their parents because nothing else makes philosophical sense", which says this is alright.
  • Traditionalist "having sex makes kids and making kids means you have to take repsonsibility", where using abortion as a get-out-of-jail-free card for carefree sex is detestable, and which is simply not applicable here because the kid was euthanized for being crippled, not for being unwanted.
  • The collectivist "do not burden society with the unviable", which is satisfied with this outcome.

So...dunno. I reckon it's distasteful, disagreeable, depressing, not something that really bears thinking about, but I can't really say it's wrong. IMO the parents made the right call in a very difficult situation.

I agree with you philosophically. I have a son the same age who is healthy, but if he were suffering severely in the manner described in the article I would feel compelled to at least seriously consider every lawful option to alleviate that suffering.

However, I think there might be good practical arguments against euthanasia, especially in a system where the government bears the cost of healthcare. There is a strong financial incentive for the government to use euthanasia as cost-saving tool, and this incentive might erode whatever checks are in place, such that people who should not be euthanized are getting euthanized anyway. I'm not sure if I fully believe this argument, but it's the only counterargument that seems at all convincing to me.

I agree that this incentive exists. At present, it's hard to imagine it having effect - the taboo on euthanasia on economic grounds seems too strong. But as previously stated, I wouldn't even call that a problem in itself - at some point you need to make the call on how much a nonviable life is worth to you in cold hard numbers. And when the state provides all health care and euthanasia, then you can hardly expect the state to have to say in it. The problem, I'd say, is that states in general aren't trustworthy or even competent.

This situation is quite different from existing euthanasia cases because the subject did not have the ability to ask for it or consent at all. My understanding is in most past cases the subject agreed to it in some capacity or another.

If this case holds, then logically just killing vegetables and tards in general will follow. Honestly I'm not all that against it. The idea of having to take care of a disabled human for life is insanely terrifying, and I think leaving an escape hatch would sooth alot of worrying. Ideally it can even apply to the trash on the streets with brains irreversibly fried by hard drugs.

I think it’s ethical.

The “abortion” label obscures and the child’s age is irrelevant. This is putting down someone in pain who can’t advocate for themselves and won’t get better. Imagine they were 80 and not parents but children made the decision. Imagine they were you. We can’t prove certainly they were miserable, but all signs indicate such; and the alternative for them is not really living, at least I can’t imagine them being happy.

From the pro-life site:

That damage left the child with severe cerebral palsy, a visual impairment, and frequent epileptic seizures that were largely unresponsive to medication.

The child was restless, often unable to sleep for long periods, and had mucus in the lungs that made breathing and swallowing very difficult.

“All facets of ‘being human’ — regarding motor skills, behavior, and personality — were severely impaired and were not going to improve,” the committee said in its defense of the euthanasia. [Yes, from the biased committee, but the site doesn’t argue motor skills, behavior, or personality are present]

Yeah, born 26 weeks early and with severe brain damage. Also visual impairments, cerebral palsy, and untreatable epileptic seizures. The kid could be kept alive through likely expensive and invasive means, with no hope of alleviating the suffering. But that seems largely pointless. Based on the article, this is not a case that modern medicine is capable of treating, so instead the decision was made to end the life as humanely as possible.

26 weeks early

*At 26 weeks (i. e., 13 weeks early)

Oh yeah, true. Nice catch. Doesn't change the overall point though, that this is what euthanasia is supposed to be.

Euthanasia is a solved problem and the only explanation for its advocates call for it is that they have insufficient care for the lives they're ending. There is no circumstance, NONE, where it is necessary to actively end a nonthreatening person's life. Not when you can just give them the fun drugs in quantities sufficient to render their suffering moot. This kid should have been on fentanyl, not murdered. (If the drug kills the patient as a side effect that's unfortunate, though predictable. At least they had the best available time beforehand.)

I think giving the kid any amount of fent would have the exact same effect as whatever they gave him.

Not when you can just give them the fun drugs in quantities sufficient to render their suffering moot.

I'm not a hedonic utilitarian: I'd rather die.

What about people who are functionally dead (like brain death) or people who were functionally never born (as is arguable in this case)?

It seems for most of these cases withdrawing non-palliative medical care would cause the patient to die anyways, if somewhat slower. Are there cases where euthanasia provides benefits vs Palliative care plus just letting the person die somewhat more slowly? I’m obviously not a doctor, so I imagine it’s probably not as simple as my mental model is.

I mean palliative care only provides meaningful benefit for some problems, many other patients would prefer their autonomy to be respected or are unable to establish their wishes because of the illness (or don't even have wishes).

Well the fentanyl isn't going to make things any worse for them, then. It's a little more expensive for the parents or society that keeps them alive, but not THAT much more expensive. Drugs is cheap yo. Especially as they wouldn't be alive for that much longer in proportion to how much fun they're having.

Pleasure causing drugs don't fix all problems, and for people who functionally don't have brains they aren't really doing much.

It's not about fixing problems, it's about giving the sufferer the a quality of life better than being dead. And I feel like that shouldn't be a super high bar because people regularly persevere through absolutely horrible circumstances instead of choosing death

If the person is truly braindead, then the drugs aren't any WORSE than euthanasia. The point is to avoid deliberately killing someone who would have otherwise preferred life-- even in the meanest sense.

It's not about fixing problems, it's about giving the sufferer the a quality of life better than being dead.

What I'm saying is that in a lot of these cases the drugs don't improve any quality of life or there is literally no quality of life.

These things also come with serious side effects.

It's not a good solution. Fentanyl is not Soma.

The drugs are not perfect and do not make a negative value life have positive value. Would you like to be a fentanyl addict, for example? A miserable existence.

I think fentanyl addicts prefer their drugged state to their undrugged state, and prefer it also to being killed. If either of those things fail to hold, then their problem is insufficiently fun drugs. Now, it's hard to say whether the epileptic braindead child would prefer drugs to death, but I feel confident enough guessing that insofar as they have preferences, they would enjoy fentanyl as a little treat. The problem with fentanyl globally is that it prevents people from living full, healthy lives in other ways... But I don't think that's a concern in this incident.

One thing I do wonder about, what is your perspective on why this story is uniquely outrageous? Given the medical history, it seems to me more similar than usual to the numerous cases of the life support plug being pulled on the comatose and braindead of more advanced age. I'm aware that Christians tend to not particularly like those either, if prompted, but there does not seem to be that much of an organised opposition and ultimately they are just not what the outrage machine winds up putting on the frontpages of the internet. At the same time, neither the article you linked nor you seem to be pushing an angle suggesting that children are somehow more precious or morally valuable than adults; the focus is instead squarely on the adults making the decision.

Given this, you should understand why it is so easy for your outgroup to convince itself and the NPCface peanut gallery that pro-life activism is really about controlling women's sexuality. The account in which the pro-life activist is theory-of-minded as thinking something like "finally a woman got saddled with the deserved consequences [that is, being a joyless full-time caretaker who stays in the home] of all her fornicating, and now she is trying to weasel herself out of them!", however uncharitable, at least explains all the observations. If pro-lifers have a better account of what is actually the value function according to which they decide what to be outraged about, they have not succeeded in letting it be widely known.

Given the medical history, it seems to me more similar than usual to the numerous cases of the life support plug being pulled on the comatose and braindead of more advanced age. I'm aware that Christians tend to not particularly like those either, if prompted, but there does not seem to be that much of an organised opposition and ultimately they are just not what the outrage machine winds up putting on the frontpages of the internet.

That, and also the death penalty, and war. Apparently slaughtering Persian schoolgirls for no reason is a-ok but aborting a 2 month fetus is not. Weird.

  • -11

Apparently slaughtering Persian schoolgirls for no reason is a-ok but aborting a 2 month fetus is not.

No one is in favor of slaughtering Persian school girls on the first order so it's just not virile memetics.

Really crazy. You'd think that Christians would think about what a just war is, compared to an unjust war, and come up with some kind of, uh, theory about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory#Criteria

Just cause

The reason for going to war needs to be just and cannot, therefore, be solely for recapturing things taken or punishing people who have done wrong; innocent life must be in imminent danger and intervention must be to protect life. A contemporary view of just cause was expressed in 1993 when the US Catholic Conference said: "Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations."

It fails this massively.

Last resort

The principle of last resort stipulates that all non-violent options must first be exhausted before the use of force can be justified. Diplomatic options, sanctions, and other non-military methods must be attempted or validly ruled out before the engagement of hostilities. Further, in regard to the amount of harm—proportionally—the principle of last resort would support using small intervention forces first and then escalating rather than starting a war with massive force such as carpet bombing or nuclear warfare.[81]

Fails.

Probability of success

According to this principle, there must be good grounds for concluding that aims of the just war are achievable

Remote attacking of maybe-military bases has basically no chance of actually conquering Iran so it is just harassment which fails this criterion.

Competent authority

Only duly constituted public authorities may wage war. "A just war must be initiated by a political authority within a political system that allows distinctions of justice. Dictatorships (e.g. Hitler's regime) or deceptive military actions (e.g. the 1969 US bombing of Cambodia) are typically considered as violations of this criterion.

Fails by deceptive clause. Although, my most controversial take here, I do not believe Trump or POTUS generally has competent authority. POTUS is popularly selected, not meritocratically selected, and most Ancient Christians would agree the USA system of government is structurally invalid. It is basically just mob rule. It's not different than some random street gang going to war. It might be worse because in theory the gangsters have gone through some kind of selective merit mechanism if they have survived for any length of time. The USA is a big never challenged plot of land run by a popularity government, the opposite of competent authority. And Trump embodies this perfectly.

Trump literally committed the worst sin by slaughtering the leader of Iran surreptitiously.

How do you feel about the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto during WWII?

During is pretty different from before, no?

You complained about the death penalty and war, not the specifics of the current war in Iran, and I answered that. I don't particularly care whether or not you feel any given current thing act of war fits just war theory or not, I'm pointing out that Christians have a perfectly good answer to the questions of war and, of course, the death penalty. The "what would 'Ancient Christians' (do you mean the Apostles? The Church Fathers? Constantine?) think" thing is pretty much incoherent, because formalized just war theory was Medieval rather than Roman - look how vague the theory from Ambrose is in the wikipedia article you're quoting. My suspicion, though, is that they would be significantly closer to "this is the coolest thing ever, bold Christian knights flew o'er the Ocean to capture a God-hating rebel, and annihilated a heathen prince with bolts from the sky!"

I'm pointing out that Christians have a perfectly good answer to the questions of war and, of course, the death penalty

significantly closer to "this is the coolest thing ever, bold Christian knights flew o'er the Ocean to capture a God-hating rebel, and annihilated a heathen prince with bolts from the sky!"

Okay with ethics like that why be anti abortion? We're back to it actually being about fornication because it ain't about valuing life.

Okay with ethics like that why be anti abortion? We're back to it actually being about fornication because it ain't about valuing life.

It turns out that while innocent life is worth protecting, those subjected to the death penalty aren't generally considered innocent, and neither are soldiers in a war under, to my understanding, a somewhat different model.

It turns out that while innocent life is worth protecting, those subjected to the death penalty aren't generally considered innocent, and neither are soldiers in a war under, to my understanding, a somewhat different model.

How do you decide who is innocent, and how is that Christian given original sin? Sounds contradictory and ad hoc.

And Trump literally committed the worst sin by slaughtering the leader of Iran surreptitiously.

I'm pretty sure it's well agreed that the Israelis murdered the ayatollah. Whether the US's participation in the war was instrumental in his death is certainly up for debate, but Trump was nowhere near ordering him to be blown up.

Additionally the list of criteria you listed is one of secular philosophy. Despite incorporating elements of christian thinking, the overall criteria is the result of secular thought.

most Ancient Christians would agree the USA system of government is structurally invalid. It is basically just mob rule. It's not different than some random street gang going to war.

Yeah and instead they believe that rule by kings an emperors is good and right. Murdering the previous emperor and taking power in a bloody coup like the Romans loved to do was a perfect and flawless example of legitimate secular authority in Jesus's teachings.

I'm pretty sure it's well agreed that the Israelis murdered the ayatollah.

Do we know that for sure? Any source?

Yeah and instead they believe that rule by kings an emperors is good and right. Murdering the previous emperor and taking power in a bloody coup like the Romans loved to do was a perfect and flawless example of legitimate secular authority in Jesus's teachings.

Asking the peasants which liar should be the tyrant is at best hardly better. Obviously a better form of government can be / has been designed but mob rule is kept for bad reasons.

Who were the ancient Christians??? Who were they???

You're the one who keeps bringing them up.

That, and also the death penalty, and war. Apparently slaughtering Persian schoolgirls for no reason is a-ok but aborting a 2 month fetus is not. Weird.

I don't see how an accidental mistargeting of a school that used to be a military base due to outdated intelligence is in any way remotely comparable to intentionally killing a 2 year old outside of arguing in bad faith. Weird.

I don't see how an accidental mistargeting of a school that used to be a military base due to outdated intelligence is in any way remotely comparable to intentionally killing a 2 year old outside of arguing in bad faith. Weird.

The United States has slaughtered almost 400,000 civilians, many of them children, in Middle eastern countries since 2001.

  • -10

If you looked at the source at all, you would see that the majority were slaughtered by the opponent of the Americans. You may argue that the conflict would not have happened without US intervention, but it was still the opponents who blew up those people.

And anyways I clicked through the source to look at some actual cases, I randomly clicked on Eighteen gay men and boys killed in Baghdad. I'm just gonna make a huuuge leap and guess that the Americans didn't have much to do with this.

Only the US has agency; there is no novus actus interveniens from any other actor downstream of US action (or sometimes, inaction) so the US is responsible for all deaths attributable to its action or inaction, even indirectly.

If you looked at the source at all, you would see that the majority were slaughtered by the opponent of the Americans

Where does it say that?

If you go through the sources for example the Iraq War which has documented deaths between 187,499 – 211,046 and filter for deaths caused by only "US-led coalition, no Iraqi state forces" that number is 17,076. For comparison, ISIS is directly responsible for 26,751 civilian deaths.

So Phailyoor is likely correct. He also linked the same source I found by looking at the source of the number on Wikipedia article you linked.

There's literally a link you can click in the post, yet you continue mindlessly claiming that 100% of all civilian deaths in the conflict were caused by bloodthirsty Americans murdering them in cold blood.

Your source said 18 gay men dead vs 400,000 civilians.

  • -10

I'm aware that Christians tend to not particularly like those either, if prompted, but there does not seem to be that much of an organised opposition

Bruh the UK Parliament just voted down an assisted dying bill that had been on the docket for two years with strong establishment and media support, after the bill had already been passed once by the House of Commons. I assume it was the Hare Krishnas fighting that campaign? I also fail to see the connection between euthanizing brain-damaged toddlers and whatever narrative you have about sex here, to the point where accusing others of a fixation on sex sounds awfully like projection. In the pro-life article linked there, there's not a single sentence about sex or sexuality, just a (surprisingly) matter-of-fact reporting of the law and the condition of the child (your problem seems to be that "the focus is instead squarely on the adults making the decision" - I suppose, in theory, they could have asked the now-deceased brain-damaged two-year-old for his/her opinion, but that seems difficult for multiple reasons).

Edit: I was going to make this point in another comment, but looking at the opening of yours I may as well make it here: it seems to me that a really obvious schelling point here is the difference between "pulling the plug"/moving to palliative care and actively killing someone. Obvious and natural place to put a fence on the slippery slope. For adults, I'd say let them fill out a form to get discharged from hospital with a bottle of Scotch and a pistol, but I have a feeling that might get abused by certain segments of the population.

What exactly was the UK bill about? "Assisted dying" in the culture-warred about, Canadian sense generally involves conscious people wanting to have themselves euthanised. That seems much more rare than the "braindead adult taken off life support" cases like Terri Schiavo (sp?), which seem more similar to this one. Those are also completely legal in the UK, and I have not seen OP or anyone else complain about instances of it in ages. You can dismiss the "controlling sexuality" theory as projection or otherwise all you want, but as I said that is not very compelling when you are not offering an alternative theory for why this is.

I wrote an edit about the difference between euthanizing someone and taking them off life support, but you may not have seen it. Incidentally, this is another issue that Christians have thought much harder about than people on the internet just kind of assume they have, cf. the Catholic doctrine of double effect and palliative care.

I will leave it to the Christian posters here to elaborate on how they see things, since I may get the exact points of their beliefs wrong (my personal answer would be, no, that's not how most Christians think, but also yeschad.jpg, women's (and men's) sexuality should be controlled by social norms and, to the extent practicable, the State). The guy you are making up in your head to get mad at certainly does exist, among Christians, atheists, Muslims, etc., but isn't particularly relevant to this discussion. What I understand Christians believe is that all human life is inherently valuable, as one of the highest gifts God gave us, and there are only a certain quite limited set of (almost entirely military/judicial) circumstances in which it is just to take a life. Their moral repugnance of murder is not just "it sucks for the guy who got murdered because it hurts a lot and he didn't want to be murdered", but that it is the snuffing out of something inherently extraordinarily valuable. Things get complicated around the natural end of life, but the suffering our bodies inflict on us is also considered to be a part of life, one that we endure because it in some way brings us closer to higher things. Generally, a good prior is that the group that's had the West's smartest minds thinking about things in their paradigm for almost two thousand years probably has a more developed theory of any given issue than something you heard about their beliefs from Jon Stewart or a social media dunk.

Honestly find this less objectionable than mid-pregnancy 'abortions of convenience', assuming that the medical assessment was reasonably accurate. Modern socialized medicine has a bunch of issues with 'we could stop X from dying but now have created a situation of unbounded medical expense and suffering'

Agreed. Modern medicine cannot cure everything. Sometimes accepting death is better than elongating the suffering.

Modern medicine cannot cure everything.

...yet. (Growth mindset!)

For sure! I am hoping for a cure for aging within my lifetime

assuming that the medical assessment was reasonably accurate.

Entirely vibes-based assessment, but given patterns about this, I anticipate such things will have a very, very low burden of proof to allow a "post-birth abortion," and it will eventually become legally-forbidden hate speech to question when socially awkward 5-year-olds are killed. Slippery slope perhaps, but I think the slope just is slippery.

True. Not denying the slope slipperiness but in this particular case I think it was reasonable from the evidence presented.

I don't think I quite fully appreciated what a house of horrors the Xu Bo case @georgioz posted there too was before, either.

I'd be curious to see some secular humanist or other arguments against them

I think the best version I can come up with is based on the following sketch. Humans form into self-integrated societies that have net-positive moral utility. Rights dependent on subjective or arbitrary thresholds have historically had enormous potential for abuse. For a functioning, high-performance society, we must have it be generally the case that people believe rights, including life, will generally be upheld. To form a stable equilibrium, we must therefore grant all humans basic rights and define the category of humans broadly so that "unpersoning" cannot become cover for abuse.

Humans form into self-integrated societies that have net-positive moral utility.

Humans do not agree what is "net-positive moral utility". For instance I think about it from of Christian virtue ethics, not in form of utility.

Rights dependent on subjective or arbitrary thresholds have historically had enormous potential for abuse.

Right is a legal fiction, basically a strongly worded law. From where I stand, right was always the other side of duty. As soon as people renege on said duty, rights stops existing. We see it again and again. Right to privacy of correspondence is in article 12 of Universal Human Rights. It basically stopped existing after decades old creeping process of governments spying on said correspondence, people do not feel duty to resist it so the right stops existing, and not enough people care.

For a functioning, high-performance society, we must have it be generally the case that people believe rights, including life, will generally be upheld

Even skipping what "high-performance society" even means as it by itself is value and thus morality laden statement, rights as was said are social constructs. If enough people think that sacrificing hearts to the blood good or that tears of newborn children are perfectly fine price to pay for greater good, then such thing will be enshrined as a law. Maybe even a right - people have right to live their free lives enabled by tears of newborn children. What is life of a child in face of all the other things that are valued in society, children will be sacrificed to the Moloch of these rights. All of the aforementioned things be it surrogacy or euthanasia are also argued in terms of rights: right to family life, right to bodily autonomy or whatnot. In the end the rights have to be evaluated by somebody if they clash, they can be amended or suspended as during COVID. Nothing will happen if right is stepped upon or changed: no smiting, nothing will physically shatter.

In the end we live in a society that we live in, we have laws based on values and ethical system accepted through culture in the society, which are in turn informed by theology of decision makers and general population in their day to day activity. This world is the result of that.

Yes, I find it quite plausible that a deontological defense, particularly one grounded explicitly in Christian moral premises, could be more robust than the secular-humanist sketch I provided here.

Right to bodily autonomy means the right to suicide. If we can't know whether someone wants suicide it's reasonable to ask their closest family and/or produce a reasonable-person estimate. I would want suicide it that body, so I find it to be consistent with rights that the baby was killed humanely.

Right to bodily autonomy means the right to suicide.

Why? People in USA literally have second amendment right and it is curtailed by many, many stipulations but yet everybody pretends or even firmly believes that the right exists. Why you cannot have right to bodily autonomy except suicide? You already have many such stipulations, for instance your right to bodily autonomy and many other rights are suspended if you are in prison. There is right to bodily autonomy except certain mandatory vaccinations etc. What is another stipulation changing?

Sure. I assume that most of the standard arguments against euthanasia, from whatever secular-humanist perspective I was sketching before, would still hold, though. For example, the state probably should not default to the presumption that someone would prefer euthanasia in the case of incapacitation. A strong presumption in favor of living seems embedded in any society that takes the right to life seriously. You also face a principal-agent problem when large medical expenses are involved, etc.

I think most of that framework is based on the idea that these norms are meant to preserve higher-order social functioning, rather than deriving solely from a single person's capacity or preference. Applying a sort of Rawlsian veil of ignorance to the question of what you would want if you were in that body seems plausible, but I'm not sure it's trivially demonstrable that, under the same veil, there wouldn't also be a preference for living in a society with an extremely high threshold for state-sanctioned killing. There may also be a similar veil-of-ignorance perspective in which you would not want to be placed in the position of deciding on, or carrying out, a state-sanctioned killing if you found yourself in the position of a parent or panel member.

A strong presumption in favor of living seems embedded in any society that takes the right to life seriously

Strong but not infinite. Merely strong can excuse it in this case.

I think most of that framework is based on the idea that these norms are meant to preserve higher-order social functioning, rather than deriving solely from a single person's capacity or preference.

This is contrary to the notion of human rights. Society is for humans, not the other way around. Society needs to serve human outcomes, like reducing suffering of horrifically diseased infants, to justify itsown higher order functioning.

Applying a sort of Rawlsian veil of ignorance to the question of what you would want if you were in that body seems plausible, but I'm not sure it's trivially demonstrable that, under the same veil, there wouldn't also be a preference for living in a society with an extremely high threshold for state-sanctioned killing. There may also be a similar veil-of-ignorance perspective in which you would not want to be placed in the position of deciding on

Sure, but this is a weighted sum that needs to be fine-tuned. It isn't obvious the answer is to always let horrific suffering continue on life support.

Your argument makes a plausible case for suicide and euthanasia in general, but I think it fails to make a strong affirmative case for "non-voluntary" euthanasia. Nor does it really show that the initial secular-humanist sketch is inherently contradictory or wrong. Perhaps the most dangerous feature of your argument is that it risks introducing a post hoc intuition about what level of suffering is acceptable, relying on the benevolence and judgment of the individual decision-maker rather than establishing a stable social rule.

It also does not really explain why palliative care and the potential for future developments in medical care do not themselves weigh in favor of preserving life in the absence of an affirmative wish to die. Take, for example, spinal muscular atrophy in infants. Historically, this could involve extreme suffering, progressive loss of muscle function, and frequently death. But the arrival of onasemnogene abeparvovec produced a step change in our ability to treat the disease. Reasonable people might previously have concluded that such a condition was progressive, incurable, and perhaps rendered life not worth living. We now know that prognosis can be radically altered by treatment. Yet there remains an enormous social and financial cost to supplying such treatment. There would therefore be an obvious institutional incentive not to deploy a two-million-dollar-per-dose drug if we had already normalized euthanizing people with the disease.

It was perhaps a weakness in my initial sketch to use the term "net-positive moral utility," but once you invoke a Rawlsian-style transposition of positions, we can admit analysis from behind a veil of ignorance. It is not contradictory to emerge from that analysis with a framework that is liberal in nature and secular-humanist in outlook, but treats the relevant rights as ordered rather than fully commensurable. For example, you might conclude that the right to life has lexical or ordinal priority over the right to pursue the good life because revoking the right to life is irreversible, whereas suffering may be temporary and a person may later acquire greater opportunities to pursue the good life through developments in technology or medical care.

The key weakness in proposing that "fine-tuning" is the obvious method for resolving the tension in cases involving euthanasia of an incapacitated person is that the proposal still lacks an administrable surrogate-decision rule. It contains a projection problem, in which the preferences of a person with one set of capabilities are projected onto someone with another; it has not defined a stable limiting principle; it does not explain what evidentiary threshold should apply in cases of disagreement; and it does not explain the source or limits of the proxy's authority.

More generally, in this case, we have drawn lines around both incapacity and the age of the person to be euthanized. If I understand you correctly, you have already conceded that the infant is a person. If we allow rights to depend upon further distinctions within the category of persons, then we need some mechanism for protecting against institutional abuse and category expansion.

For an intentionally extreme example, consider the following. I do not endorse this view, and I am not claiming that your framework necessarily leads to it. I offer it as the sort of risk case from which we would presumably want a theory to protect us. A person seeks transition surgery from male to female. A central part of their conception of being female is the possibility of motherhood, but medical science cannot make that possible. The doctor understands this and believes that the patient will experience enormous and indefinite suffering even after surgery. While under anesthesia, the patient is incapacitated and unable to express a present preference for life. We would not therefore allow the doctor to substitute their own judgment about whether the patient's life is worth living for the judgment of the patient. Even if the doctor correctly predicts that the patient will suffer indefinitely, the doctor does not acquire the authority to conclude that the life is not worth living and then kill the patient.

The example is deliberately extreme, but analogous cases can be constructed around any number of classifications, a sort of general Lebensunwertes Leben. Once rights protection depends upon classifications and judgments of worth evaluated by third parties, the theory owes an account of which classifications are legitimate, who is entitled to make them, and why. The point of the coarse definition of personhood and the broad presumptions, such as a presumption in favor of continued life, in the original framework is precisely to protect the institution of human rights against those problems. Invoking "fine-tuning" therefore does not answer the original argument. It requires defeating the reason for adopting the coarse rule in the first place, rather than simply asserting that finer-grained balancing is obviously preferable.

that the patient will experience enormous and indefinite suffering even after surgery. While under anesthesia, the patient is incapacitated and unable to express a present preference for life. We would not therefore allow the doctor to substitute their own judgment about whether the patient's life is worth living for the judgment of the patient. Even if the doctor correctly predicts that the patient will suffer indefinitely, the doctor does not acquire the authority to conclude that the life is not worth living and then kill the patient.

Your argument against reasonable euthanasia is imagining unreasonable euthanasia. The same logic can be used to abolish the age of consent. If you can arrest someone for violating the age of consent, then in theory you could slippy slope into arresting someone for any deviant sexual interest. Therefore you could arrest trans people. Do you want trans people to not be in prison? If yes, do you want there to be an age of consent? If yes, you reject your own logic. So to own this logic you must either be for locking up trans people for being trans or for getting rid of the age of consent. Note that any special please that it's different can also be used equally as well against your thought experiment.

Once rights protection depends upon classifications and judgments of worth evaluated by third parties, the theory owes an account of which classifications are legitimate, who is entitled to make them, and why.

But rights already do depend on 3rd party evaluations ... think about courts and wars. Your argument only is fully consistent if you support something like abolishing most of the violent government and moving towards an absolute NAP society.

Age can be measured objectively, so age-based restrictions are much harder to slippery-slope than reasonable slipping to unreasonable.

Whether a patient can communicate their desire for or against suicide can also be measured objectively. Objective measures can be slipperly sloped at any rate, see the Nürnberger Gesetze, or just increasingly high and unreasonable age limits.

No. My argument states that there must be some meaningful limiting principle if you want to argue affirmatively for non-voluntary euthanasia. No, I do not claim that you should abolish courts or wars under that theory. My claim, under that framework, is that those would be illegitimate without significant procedural safeguards.

that there must be some meaningful limiting principle if you want to argue affirmatively for non-voluntary euthanasia.

Everyone agrees with that, no? I pointed towards some basic functional limiting principles here.

This child was born very prematurely, at only 26 weeks of gestation. It quickly became apparent that the child had suffered severe brain damage, resulting in severe cerebral palsy and a visual impairment. This was compounded by frequent and severe epileptic seizures, which were largely unresponsive to medication. This left the child restless and unable to sleep for long periods. The child also had mucus in its lungs, which made breathing and swallowing very difficult.

Given the cumulative effect of these conditions, it was clear that the child would not live to adulthood. The doctor also determined that the child's suffering could not be alleviated through medical treatment. The doctor and parents, therefore, decided to actively end the child’s life.

The committee concluded that the doctor acted with due care and made the right assessment. “All facets of ‘being human’—regarding motor skills, behavior, and personality—were severely impaired and were not going to improve,” the committee said. “Despite all medical and non-medical interventions, the parents and the doctor observed no improvement in the child’s condition and were convinced that the child was suffering unbearably and without prospect of relief.” It added that the doctor strictly adhered to all due-care requirements.

The Netherlands changed its euthanasia law in 2024 to allow for euthanasia on children between the ages of 1 and 12 under very strict conditions. These include that the child must be experiencing hopeless and unbearable suffering, there must be no other reasonable solution, and the doctor must have at least one other independent physician assess the case.

The original report mentions further (via Google Translate):

The epilepsy caused coughing fits and a swallowing disorder. In the months preceding the death, the seizures during mealtimes increased significantly.

The extensive brain damage had severe consequences for the child's functioning. There was a very severe developmental delay with an estimated developmental age of six weeks, while the child was nearly two years old. There was no verbal development whatsoever, and the cerebral visual impairment further limited the possibilities for any contact. Due to the combination of these conditions, only minimal communication with the child was possible. The child was severely multiply (intellectually and motorically) disabled, and the prognosis was that the child would remain dependent on care for life for all activities of daily living.

The extensive brain damage had severe consequences for the child's functioning. The child had sputum clearance issues, meaning that loosening and coughing up mucus from the lungs and airways was difficult, which, in addition to shortness of breath, poses a significantly increased risk of respiratory infections. The child's rattling breathing was clearly audible, and increasing shortness of breath was visible. Furthermore, the respiratory problems could worsen over time due to scoliosis. The doctor stated that the child exhibited an unsafe swallowing pattern, making it easy for the child to aspirate and for food or stomach contents to enter the airways, posing a risk of aspiration pneumonia (lung infection caused by aspiration). The likelihood of death at a very young age due to complications was considered very high.

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