A Washington Post blog has announced that the editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics, Julian Savulescu, is preparing a special issue on infanticide. This follows the world-wide controversy over the JME’s February 23 article, “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”, by two Italian ethicists working in Australia who argued that infanticide is morally permissible.

One contribution of the special issue will be to demonstrate that infanticide is not a novel notion. Quite a number of serious bioethicists who have defended it over the past 40 years, will contribute, including Savulescu, Peter Singer, Michael Tooley, and Jeff McMahon.

However, the author of the blog post, Charles C. Camosy, of Fordham University, in New York, says that Savulecu is also inviting several well-known pro-life opponents to contribute. Camosy is one of them. Others include Robert P. George, of Princeton, and John Finnis, of Oxford.

Stay tuned! When the special issue appears, the JME will no doubt become one of the most talked-about ethics journals on the planet.

Written by Michael Cook