Is there a distinction between killing a baby and letting it die?Infanticide was an accepted part of life for cavemen. If incapable of providing for another mouth to feed, a parent would simply kill the cave-baby. Later, it was used as a form of eugenics. Today, infanticide can function as a means of population or sex control, an economic stimulus for low-income earners or a result of mental or emotional difficulties.Today, pro-life advocates label Sen. Barack Obama and his enthusiasts as modern infanticide supporters.I honestly can’t blame them for attacking me and my fellow Neanderthals. In their view, we are a bunch of primitive, barbarian, hate-mongering baby killers.Jill Stanek, former registered nurse and outspoken abortion opponent, is one of the most prominent critics of Obama’s abortion stance. In January, she listed the top 10 reasons why Obama allegedly supports infanticide.Among them was “Introducing legislation to live aborted babies from being shelved to die … was a ploy to overturn Roe v. Wade.”She added, “So what if stopping hospitals and abortion clinics from aborting babies alive and leaving them to die did theoretically ‘encroach on Roe v. Wade?’ Obama was admitting he supported infanticide if that were true.”Obama’s defenders claim by opposing such legislation, he was concerned about protecting doctors’ legal rights and responsibilities, not with legislating abortion. But this doesn’t answer the question: Is shelving a live aborted baby morally equivalent to murder?Robert George, a professor at Princeton University writing for The Public Discourse, defended his belief that the “pro-choice” label should be referred to as “pro-abortion.”George noted that in every state implementing the Freedom of Choice Act or similar legislation, “abortion rates have increased while the national rates have decreased.”George also noted Obama would “repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest.” George said Obama would sign FOCA, guaranteeing the right to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy for undefined health reasons and abolishing almost all limitations on abortion “including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life” health care workers against being forced to participate in an abortion.Obama would also block the Pregnant Women Support Act and strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion, according to George.The three major monotheistic religions all reject infanticide, which troubled George in his attempt to understand pro-choice Christians and pro-life Obama supporters who claim Obama’s economic and social policies are geared toward eliminating abortion.In a 2005 edition of The New York Times magazine, Jim Holt debated passive euthanasia of infants in America and active infanticide in the Netherlands and questioned whether mankind is becoming more or less decent. He claimed violating the right to life is always murder, but used specific examples to stretch the moral flexibility of the argument.A birth defect in which a baby is born with severely limited brain development — in some cases, none at all — is a very real issue in this discussion. Children with this condition could be kept alive on life support, but typically aren’t, as opposed to babies born with normal brain functions who receive standard medical treatment to prolong life.In another case, “Baby Doe” had a birth defect that complicated consumption and digestion. The parents opted for their doctors to let the child die, rather than attempt to surgically repair the condition.In the Netherlands, a child was born with a skin disease that left scar tissue anywhere she was touched. Her life expectancy was a maximum of 10 years. Doctors declined her parents’ request to “put an end to her ordeal … fearing criminal prosecution,” and she died six months later.The Groningen protocol, as it’s called in the Netherlands, articulates that sometimes death is more humane than life and provides a checklist of requirements for euthanasia. These include “informed consent of both parents, certain diagnosis, confirmation by at least one independent doctor and so on.” Holt suggests shifting the frame of one side of the debate from quality of life, which is subjective by all measures, to terms of suffering. The sanctity of life argument is much less effective when posed against the latter argument.Holt claimed a life dominated by pain is “to do that infant a continuous injury.” But who am I kidding? I don’t have an answer to the same question I posed. Because if it’s above the pay grade of the president, then it’s sure as hell above my pay grade.—-Contact Daniel Lumetta at [email protected]