I will now attempt to do so, where "nails" are the figurative representation for the words I write.
First off, here is the article in question, titled "Killing babies no different than abortion, experts say". Secondly, this is not "new" as far as eugenics is concerned.
In the Netherlands, it is legal to euthanize in certain situations, and those "certain situations" map out a surprisingly broad horizon. Newborns have a place in that map. Does this shock you? Had you often thought of euthanasia as an issue only for the elderly and those in hospice?
Here's a nice little quote from the article to get your blood pumping:
They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”
Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.
The funny thing is, they have it right...and then so wrong. The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus, because from the moment of conception, from the moment that the egg cell and sperm cell fuse into the zygote (baby) and the soul of that person is infused (sorry scientists, can't ignore that God is part of this), that person is a baby/baby is a person/cell is a person/etc... However you want to spell that out, the point is that I was me when my DNA was formed at the fusion of the oocyte and spermocyte of my parents. So they are correct there, but so sadly, they reverse the truth they just proclaimed and state that instead of the person existing from the moment of conception, the person isn't even a person until.. when? They have "reasonable cognitive functions"?
Now, if you haven't heard of Descartes (and you have, even if you don't know that you have), let me introduce you to him: "I think, therefore I am" (Part VI of Discourse on Method). Now, let's be clear about this statement - Descartes does not spend pages discussing that he exists simply by brain power, as if he was sure electricity was keeping his heart going. His philosophy is one that has been taken up by modern thought (along with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes and others) to undermine natural law with a concept of general distrust of the material. However, the distrust of the material lead to a distrust of the spiritual as well, for the two cannot be without one another. In the end, the Cartesian separation is a dichotomy between body and soul that leads to a rejection of the reality of the state of being that we find ourselves in. There is far too much to be said on this topic for a paragraph, so it can be left to say that science (at least, as reflected in the article in reference here) has been influenced in a negative way by this philosophy.
Taken to the extreme, this understanding of what makes a human, "human", reduces man to something that excludes the natural facts of life. There are, sadly, a number of persons who have very low or non-existent brain functions, or at least are not able to present any rational thought, and yet they are people. However, this redefining of what is a person creates an unrealistic sieve where any of the "unwanted" can be safely "dropped through the cracks."
At the end of the day, we cannot stand for those trained in biology and science to claim that eugenics and infanticide are morally permissible, and almost worse, reasonable. To murder in a nonchalant and callous way is nothing short of irrational. And it is also sickeningly wrong.
Chew on that for a bit...
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