Mercy Killing for Disabled Newborns

Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecology are lobbying for the legalization of euthanasia for disabled newborns.

This seems to be a pretty interesting perspective on an old standby. It certainly has a different dynamic to it. It's one thing to talk about the killing of a terminally ill/disabled patient that's lived a long life, it's another thing to talk about the killing of one that has his/her whole life ahead of him/her. However, the same question of quality of life still applies. In protecting life, does the quality of that life factor in?

This debate gets even more complicated when you try to set it up. How would you define what a "disabled newborn" is? Does a crack baby qualify? How about if the baby is just genetically blind? You have to be careful in how you set this debate up lest you suddenly find yourself defending something you weren't exactly planning to, such as killing babies that just can't walk. What kind of disability you eventually choose to discuss has to be so bad as to warrant taking someone's life.

Sensitivity is also something you need to watch out for. You can't just talk about these babies as if they were statistics. Doing so only serves to turn off a lot of people. Be careful how you package your arguments.

In my opinion, this issue becomes harder if you're to oppose it. You have to justify why child barely alive has to live the next 40 years in life-support systems, never truly living.

One possible track is mentioned in the article, how such a policy only serves to promote bigotry for disabled people, as if they were lesser human beings.

If you can't make the connections for that argument, realize that the only other living beings killed for their disabilities are horses with broken legs.

The best strategy that an opposition team should take (at least I think so) would be to try and frame the issue as if it was a typical euthanasia issue.

Then again, in a debate, anything could happen.