[ExI] The imams and advanced bioscience in Iran

[Stefano Vaj]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 5:38 AM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> Rubbish. He doesn't seem to mind at all that the Iranians (see
> below) pick 120 days. The Japanese use to pick three months,
> if I recall correctly. Up until then, the Japs were legally able
> to kill their newborns. I'll bet the author would be very uncomfortable with
> the logical extension of his belief here.

Yes. I understand this practice was called "mabiki" (literally
referring to the "culling of the weaker plants of rice") and was
adopted both for eugenic and, more rarely,  birth-control purposes
well into the XX century. Midwives were in charge of that, and they
used to present routinely the newborn to the father's examination,
asking politely if he or she should "stay" or "go". All in all, it
does not appear very different from pre-Christian traditional European
practices.

Francis Crick, the co-Nobelist with Watson for the discovery of DNA,
raised in turn some scandal in France in 1970 indicating during an
interview that he favoured a legal re-definition of one's "birth"
allowing for a two-days period aimed at making possible a more
in-depth medical examination, and possible eugenic selection, of
newborns.

Needless to say, amniocentesis, villocentesis and new upcoming
technologies are steadily reducing the relevance of legal infanticide
for eugenic purposes. The issue remains for possible euthanasic
purposes.

Stefano Vaj