The slippery slope

Once the killing of the human embryo, the fetus, and the partially born baby is allowed - why not the infant? Life will be so much easier if we do away with everyone who is inconvenient. If we abort those who are unwanted, disabled, a burden to society - why not kill them off after they are born? What stands in the way of retroactive abortion? Perhaps the Nazis were just ahead of their time as they eliminated "life unworthy of life" and "useless eaters." The Daily Mail [London] reports on the growing moral irrelevance of official Anglicanism:

The Church of England has broken with tradition dogma by calling for doctors to be allowed to let sick newborn babies die.

Christians have long argued that life should preserved at all costs - but a bishop representing the national church has now sparked controversy by arguing that there are occasions when it is compassionate to leave a severely disabled child to die.

And the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, who is the vice chair of the Church of England's Mission and Public Affairs Council, has also argued that the high financial cost of keeping desperately ill babies alive should be a factor in life or death decisions.

The shock new policy from the church has caused outrage among the disabled.

A spokeswoman for the UK Disabled People's Council, which represents tens of thousands of members in 140 different organisations, said: "How can the Church of England say that Christian compassion includes killing of disabled babies either through the withdrawing or withholding of treatment or by active euthanasia?

"It is not for doctors or indeed anyone else to determine whether a baby’s life is worthwhile simply on the grounds of impairment or health condition." [emphasis added]

Update [11/15] A clarification from NRO:

Wesley Smith e-mails:

[I]t did NOT endorse mercy killing. That was bad reporting. It endorse[d] the right to stop life-sustaining treatment. Where the AC [Anglican Church] is substantially different from the Catholic Church is that the CC keeps the focus exclusively on the patient and his or her intrinsic dignity and needs. The AC said that money could be a factor in the decision making.

This is wrong, in my view. But... [it did] not actually endorsed infanticide.

But the "professionals" still decide whether a life is "worth living."