an example of the logical results of the utilitarian world view that has come to dominate medical ethics and to illustrate Leon Kass called the "Yuck factor." ttp://twitter.com/darleenclick darleenclick And least someone dismiss your argument as unserious because "We'd never be like the Nazis" it needs to be pointed out that their law was based on what had been happening in California. Angus Kenneth Boyd writes 'It has subsequently been suggested to me that people whose lives might have been ended by 'after-birth abortion' were this legal, might be deeply offended by this paper. If that is the case I am sorry, but I am also confident that many of these people are equally capable of mounting a robust academic reply to the paper'. Many of them are, but should they have to mount a robust academic defence of their right to be alive? We do not expect that of any other members of society. The demand that disabled people, who were singled out by the article, have to show that they contribute positively to society's balance sheet in order to justify their existence is unique to them. They are treated as 'not people' by the authors of the article, and the eminent scholars mentioned in the editorial, until they can prove otherwise. Alan_forrester We do not understand how caring about whether you live or die is instantiated in the brain. We do know that sometime between when the foetus first develops a brain and when a child starts talking,