"Professor Death"

Some people think your theory about infants is too clinical, as if having a baby is like buying a new car.

No, I don't write like that at all, I think.

But people who say "Never hurt a baby because a baby is sacred" are being sentimental?

Listen, if you have a newborn baby and the baby has emerged reasonably healthy and normal, of course you wanted to have a child, so you love and cherish that baby. But I've had letters from people who say: "When our baby was born something was wrong with it. The doctor wanted to operate, and now, three years later, the baby has constant seizures, is unable to walk or talk." It's a disaster. It would have been better if the baby had died. There's nothing clinical about those letters; they're tragic. But they are saying: Not all human life is sacred. Sometimes it's better if the baby dies.

The U.S. doesn't allow infanticide or euthanasia. Isn't it happening anyway?

I don't know. But I would suspect there is actually even more ending of patients' lives without their consent in this country than there is in Holland. We did an anonymous survey in Australia, and found that a lot of doctors were ending people's lives. Sometimes they would say, "I'm giving morphine; I know it will shorten the patient's life, but I'm treating the patient's pain." Sort of a double effect. Many were prepared to admit to us that the primary intention of what they were doing was to end a patient's life. There was another, smaller survey in California with similar results, and one in Belgium. It's not totally surprising, because if it's illegal to actively end someone's life, it's hard to openly discuss it with him or her.

When a baby is born without a brain, the quality of life for that baby won't be very high and killing it makes sense to a lot of people. But what if the definition of quality of life changes, and only the life of babies with blond hair and blue eyes is considered worth living?

In the case of a newborn baby without a brain, you could say the quality of life is zero, because there will be no consciousness. But you could keep the baby alive -- although that doesn't happen very often. So doctors are already making decisions based upon the quality of life. There's a continuum here: Some babies are born with a little brain, there are premature babies with massive brain hemorrhages and so on. So everyone who agrees that not all human life must be preserved at all costs just because it's human and because it's biologically alive is going to have to get into the rather tricky and gray area of just what quality of life is enough.

So maybe in 10 years a potential I.Q. of at least 100 would be added to the list of what makes life worth living?

That's possible. What we need to have is an ongoing debate about these things. Not just scream at each other.

What to do with all the knowledge -- which is becoming available earlier and earlier these days -- about the future of a newborn?

In the case of in vitro fertilization, for instance, you could study the embryos beforehand and see what qualities that baby will or will not have and decide which embryo to implant in the uterus. That's an issue we need to have a serious debate on. Because if we don't ... it's not that it's going to go away. If we do nothing about it, some people will provide it. Some people will be willing to pay for it. Then we will have a market for genetic solutions. That doesn't seem ideal to me.

Money already plays a role in decisions about life and death. Parents of a disabled newborn might say they can't afford the extra costs of raising it. Is that a good argument for infanticide?

When do they know it's disabled?

According to your theory that doesn't matter. There's no crucial difference between abortion and infanticide, because neither the fetus nor the newborn is a "person."

It doesn't make any difference to the inherent right to life of the being, no. But it does make a difference in that if the child is born with a disability that would not make its life miserable, but the parents can't pay for the extra care, they could put the child up for adoption. If the disability is a mild one, that's what I think they should do. If the condition is detected during pregnancy, the woman can't give up the child unless she goes through with the whole thing until birth, which is asking a lot more than simply saying, "I don't think you can rear this child; here's another couple that could."

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