ADOPTION AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO AFTER-BIRTH ABORTION?
A possible objection to our argument is that after-birth abortion
should be practised just on potential people who could never
have a life worth living.
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Accordingly, healthy and potentially
happy people should be given up for adoption if the family
cannot raise them up. Why should we kill a healthy newborn
when giving it up for adoption would not breach anyone’s right
but possibly increase the happiness of people involved (adopters
and adoptee)?
Our reply is the following. We have previously discussed the
argument from potentiality, showing that it is not strong
enough to outweigh the consideration of the interests of actual
people. Indeed, however weak the interests of actual people can
be, they will always trump the alleged interest of potential
people to become actual ones, because this latter interest