When is it murder to kill a baby?

The news this past week that a 22-year-old mother from Wasilla allegedly murdered her newborn baby raises an interesting question: How does infanticide differ from abortion?

The Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade allows abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, so long as it is determined that giving birth to the child would adversely affect the physical or psychological health of the mother. If the Wasilla mother had been able to find a doctor just a few short hours before she went into labor, she could have legally ended her baby’s life. As it is, she faces a possible death penalty for allegedly killing the baby by herself shortly after he was born.

If the pro-choice movement is all about a woman’s freedom to choose, then what if a woman chooses not to go to the doctor, but instead to end the life of her child on her own? Under the partial-birth abortion bill, doctors induce labor and then must make sure they crush the head of the unborn child before its torso exits the mother. But even if abortion doctors don’t succeed in this, the penalty for not following the law is not the death penalty.

Why should women be required to have a more stringent rule than doctors? If a mother finds she must take it upon herself to do the deed, either because of her personal choice or because of unfortunate circumstances, why should she be punished for not being able to kill the baby while it is still inside of her?

Sure, it’s shocking to find a baby in that condition in a closet. But honestly, what happens to the babies killed in hospitals all across the country? They might be stored in a closet as well for a while before final disposal. Just last week, the bodies of 25 babies were found in a dumpster behind an abortion clinic in Lathrop Village, Mich.

In our country there is little theoretical difference between what hospitals and clinics do every day and what the Wasilla mother is accused of. The motivation and the end result are the same, only the tools and a few hours are the difference.

If we allow mothers the choice of abortion up to the very moment of birth, we would be hard-pressed to find reasons why we should prohibit infanticide just moments after birth. A recent article in “The Hastings Center Report,” considered by many to be the world’s most prestigious bioethicist journal, claims that many times infanticide is actually a more ethical option than abortion because parents can better assess whether a child’s life is worth living or whether the child would experience too much pain and suffering in the long run.

For the past three years the Netherlands has been following a protocol that informs doctors when and where infanticide is allowed. This protocol allows infanticide on infants who are not even suffering at the moment, but who could probably suffer later in life.

There was a time not long ago when all human life was considered a sacred creation, endowed with inalienable rights, the foremost being the right to life. But once the value of a human life winds up dependent on whether a child is wanted or whether its life is determined to be worth living, we enter into a whole new realm. Under this new paradigm, we are forced to have discussions regarding exactly how old a child must be before it is considered murder to kill them.

Joy Davidson is a Palmer resident.