Doctors 'should have the right to kill unwanted or disabled babies at birth as they are not a real person' claims Oxford academic | Mail Online

Doctors 'should have the right to kill unwanted or disabled babies at birth as they are not a real person' claims Oxford academic | Mail Online: Doctors should have the right to kill newborn babies because they are disabled, too expensive or simply unwanted by their mothers, an academic with links to Oxford University has claimed.

Francesca Minerva, a philosopher and medical ethicist, argues a young baby is not a real person and so killing it in the first days after birth is little different to aborting it in the womb.

Even a healthy baby could have its life snuffed out if the mother decides she can’t afford to look after it, the article published by the British Medical Journal group states.

The journal’s editor has defended the piece, saying the publication’s role is to present well-reasoned arguments, rather than promote one particular moral view.

But the article has angered other ethicists, peers and campaigners. They have described the call for legalised infanticide as chilling and an ‘inhumane defence of child destruction’.

The doctor, a research associate at Oxford, has received death threats and hate calls telling her that she will 'burn in hell', and she said the last few days since publication have been 'the worst of my life'.

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