In January 2012, the Journal of Medical Ethics published a controversial article suggesting that the reasons that support legalized abortion should also be invoked to permit infanticide, something the authors refer to as after-birth abortion. More recently, an American physician was convicted of murder, and now faces the death penalty, for infanticides that he defended as abortions.
The original Journal of Medical Ethics article generated an outcry of opposition from physicians, philosophers, and even on the floor of the United States Congress. The journal’s editor, Julian Savulescu, issued a statement defending the article’s publication, while also affirming his own opposition to infanticide. Now, the journal has released a special edition on the debate, which includes both pro-choice and pro-life responses. For the next month, access to the special edition is free.
Also available is a brief but engaging interview with Nigel Biggar on the topic, conducted by the BBC’s David Edmunds. Download directly from the JME or listen here:
Finally, the issue includes an exchange between Charles Camosy, former McDonald Visiting Fellow, and Princeton’s Robert George—both of whom oppose abortion under any circumstances, but who disagree about how best to engage those who differ. The question of how best to make the public case for or against abortion was previously addressed on this site by the McDonald Centre’s John Perry.
Earlier this month, Nigel Biggar delivered two lectures to Davidson College in North Carolina, USA, hosted by the 
In recent years the rise of the Scottish National Party has called into question the 300 year-old Union of England and Scotland. Nationalists argue that the Scots would be better off with an independent state, and that the Anglo-Scottish Union has had its day. This might be true: after all, nation-states wax and wane, and none is the Kingdom of God—neither the USSR, nor the USA or UK.
