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SIR: As I began to read Russell Blackford's article, "The Supposed Rights of the Fetus" (September 2002), I entertained the hope that here we had a genuine Australian successor to Swift's A Modest Proposal. Alas! It soon became clear that the evil before me was real and intended. At least none can accuse Blackford of evading thin-end-of-wedge charges. He denies the right to life to the newly born as well as the unborn child, since neither possesses as yet, he maintains, "such capacities as those for self-awareness, reason and reflection", and thus, on his account, "no obligation arises" in his ethical system from their mere potentiality, "weak" or "strong", for such capacities.
According to Blackford, moral principles require "universal intuition" before they can ...