For years, pro-life ethicists and activists have been told that citing prestigious scholars advocating for infanticide constitutes the slippery slope fallacy. After all, we were told, one can find an academic to advocate for nearly anything, but nobody actually takes them seriously. But if the history of the 20th century tells us anything, it is that crackpot intellectuals can give us mountains of cracked skulls.

In 2017, Dr. Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago complained that the residual effects of Christianity were holding Western civilization back. How? It was Christian ethics, he said, that were preventing legal infanticide from making a comeback.
“The reason we don’t allow euthanasia of newborns is because humans are seen as special, and I think that comes from religion, in particular, the view that humans, unlike animals, are endowed with a soul,” he wrote. “It’s the same mindset that, in many places, won’t allow abortion of fetuses that have severe deformities. When religion vanishes, as it will, so will much of the opposition to both adult and newborn euthanasia.”
Many philosophers share Coyne’s views. Princeton bio-ethicist Peter Singer argues that only religious superstition is keeping us from killing infants, a practice he believes to be perfectly ethical. As he wrote in Practical Ethics: “Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all.” For Singer, the baby-killing of our bloody pagan past is a source of nostalgia rather than horror.
Canadian cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker of MIT doesn’t go quite as far as Singer, but likely shares his views. In 1997, Pinker wrote in the New York Times that laws against infanticide were difficult to defend: 
To a biologist, birth is as arbitrary a milestone as any other. No, the right to life must come, the moral philosophers say, from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess. One such trait is having a unique sequence of experiences that defines us as individuals and connects us to other people. Other traits include an ability to reflect upon ourselves as a continuous locus of consciousness, to form and savor plans for the future, to dread death and to express the choice not to die. And there’s the rub: our immature neonates don’t possess these traits any more than mice do.
In his test balloon essay, Pinker quotes the Michael Tooley’s 1972 essay “Abortion and Infanticide,” in which the professor of philosophy makes the case that personhood rather than humanity is what confers human rights, and that infanticide could be permitted “up to the time an organism learned how to use certain expression.” Tooley himself noted that he would establish “some period of time, such as a week after birth, as the interval during which infanticide will be permitted.”
Parents who find out that their child is ‘imperfect’ too late to procure an abortion should, in Tooley’s view, get another crack at it. He writes: “Most people would prefer to raise children who do not suffer from gross deformities or from severe physical, emotional, or intellectual handicaps. If it could be shown that there is no moral objection to infanticide, the happiness of society could be significantly and justifiably increased.” The happiness of the rejected infants, of course, is of no consequence.
Coyne, a professor of ecology and evolution, also proposes a change in policy. He implied that it is only because of Christianity that we are squeamish about infanticide. It is time we got over such superstition:
It’s time to add to the discussion the euthanasia of newborns, who have no ability or faculties to decide whether to end their lives. Although discussing the topic seems verboten now, I believe some day the practice will be widespread, and it will be for the better. After all, we euthanize our dogs and cats when to prolong their lives would be torture, so why not extend that to humans? Dogs and cats, like newborns, can’t make such a decision, and so their caregivers take the responsibility.
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As it is often the case with medieval saints (and others in our varied Christian past), we might not agree with everything Aelred wrote. He has been accused of being vague on some issues and unduly soft on others. But his teachings on love and friendship are pastoral and thought-provoking, and his prayers are moving examples of humility and dependance on God.

In 1134, a reputable young man with a promising career at the court of David I, king of Scots, saddled his horse and started his journey to a remote abbey in a North Yorkshire valley. His name is Aelred. He never returned from his journey, and his decision to abandon everything to attain Christ is the reason why he is still known today.
Aelred the Nobleman
Aelred was born at Hexham, Northumberland, in 1110. His father was a priest (priests could still marry at that time). After his studies, in which he excelled, sometimes after 1124 he obtained a place at the court of David I, king of Scots, and his wife Matilda as a companion to Matilda’s sons: Simon and Waldef, born from a previous marriage, and Henry, her only son with David. Aelred and Henry became especially close. Due to his diplomatic abilities, Aelred rose to the title of Master of the Household and was employed in several diplomatic missions.
Sometimes between 1128 and 1131, Waldef left the court to become an Augustinian canon. He stayed in touch with Aelred, possibly highlighting some discontents already brewing in Aelred’s mind. Waldef mentioned the Cistercian Abbey at Rievaulx as an example of a community devoted to the love of God and others, and Aelred decided to travel there with a friend.
Aelred was impressed with what he saw. Still, he left to return home, only to ask his companion to take him back to the abbey one more time. This time he never left, feeling he had found his true home.
He later wrote, addressing God: “At last I began to surmise, as much as my inexperience allowed, or rather as much as you permitted, how much joy there is in your love, how much tranquility with that joy, and how much security with that tranquility. Someone who loves you makes no mistake in his choice, for nothing is better than you.”[1]
If we detect a resemblance with Augustine’s Confessions, it is because that was one of Aelred’s favorite texts, and much of his first major work, The Mirror of Charity, is fashioned after that. Aelred was also greatly influenced by Cicero’s De Amicitia, which he viewed through the lens of Augustine’s writings.
Aelred the Monk
Recognizing Aelred’s talents and experience, William, abbot of Rievaulx, sent him on several diplomatic missions as well, including one to Pope Innocent II in Rome. Later, Aelred was appointed novice master at Rievaulx (a pastor for prospective monks). His warm and compassionate spirit made him the perfect candidate for the task. In 1143, he was appointed first abbot of Revesby in Lincolnshire, where he stayed until 1147, when Maurice, the abbot who had succeeded William at Rievaulx, resigned, and Aelred was elected as his successor. Aelred kept this office for the next twenty years.
News of Aelred’s loving and caring leadership spread throughout Europe, bringing many novices to the abbey, which doubled in size. He also became famous as a preacher and writer. The fact that we still have a large quantity of his writings, gathered from different abbeys, is a proof of how much they had spread and how carefully they had been preserved.
The last ten years of Aelred’s life were difficult, as he suffered from arthritis, gout, kidney stones, and a chronic respiratory disease. He was so ill that in 1157 he had to be admitted to the infirmary at Rievaulx. From there, he moved to a nearby hut where, despite his continued sufferings, he kept receiving the numerous visitors who continued to flock by his side.
By January 1167, knowing he was about to die, he asked for three books: his psalter, Augustine’s Confessions, and the gospel of John. He died on 12 January 1167.
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As we are going through this disaster of a time – make time to mourn over your sin. Stop and contemplate its horror. Meditate on how filthy our hearts are. Look your sins straight in the face and weep over them. Consider fasting to help you focus on your sinfulness. Pray that God would cause you to see the blackness of sin. Joel teaches us that when disaster like this comes upon us, we ought to mourn over our sin (Joel 2:12-13).

This current crisis should drive Christians and the church to mourn and repent. We should see one of our duties at the moment as mourning over our sin. In both Testaments this was often accompanied by weeping, wailing, grief, lament, fasting, putting ashes put on one’s head or a humbled posture and the wearing of sackcloth – a very itchy and course material.
Someone who mourns his sin is humble before God and fasts or wears sackcloth not in order to pay for sin like some sort of penance, but because it demonstrates that he knows he does not deserve God’s blessings.
When we experience a disaster, such as the current one, we should be prompted to consider the depth of our sin and to mourn over it. To help us to that end, here are seven reasons why should we mourn over sin. Some of these reasons were inspired by Thomas Watson’s excellent little book on The Doctrine of Repentance.
1. Our sin is worse than our afflictions.
The cause is worse than the effect. All of our afflictions come because of our sinfulness. If we think people dying of a disease is bad, we need to realise that sin is worse. All suffering should point us to the fact that sin is a terrible evil because it is because of sin that we live in this cursed world.
2. Our sin finds its origin in the Devil.
Those who revel in sin are children of Satan. 1 John 3:8 says “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.”
3. Our sin is an offense to God.
The Bible describes sin as dishonouring God (Rom 2:23), despising God (1 Sam 2:30), and cheating on God like a wife cheating on her husband (Ezek 6:9).
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