Reacting to a recent conjoined twin birth in Brazil, Julian Savulescu thinks through the moral issues at work when separating the twins would require one to die:
[T[he case of competent adults is different to infant conjoined twins. In one case, lethal separation for the benefit of one twin is impermissible but in the case I tis permissible. Why is this? The reason is that infants are not yet persons capable of conceiving themselves existing across time, with hopes and plans for the future. It is striking then that the law, in permitting lethal separations, implicitly accepts infanticide, just as it accepts feticide.
It is time to revise our laws on killing. Not only in cases of euthanasia and assisted suicide but also in our treatment of infants. Instead we prefer to redescribe such infanticide as not killing at all.
Stephen Latham has related ponderings.
The Dish 