Should post-birth "abortion" be legal?

We also have to remember that science moves forward with regard to medical treatments. My dad's oldest brother was born with a closed esophagus. This was at a time when IV needles for infants were unheard of, and as far as I know, they didn't do surgery on infants either. He slowly starved to death.

My dad was born with the same condition, but his doctor took the approach of opening his esophagus using an eye dropper containing acid. It was crude, but effective. My dad had acid reflux his whole life because the acid also damaged the valve between his esophagus and stomach, but he was fit enough to be sent overseas in World War II, he later got married, and he fathered five children. He lived to be 74.

Nowadays, surgeons can give IV's to babies and they have the tools and techniques necessary to correct the problem with surgery. But what if everyone had just euthanized infants with this condition? Would doctors have come up with solutions to this problem, or would euthanasia be considered the solution? My uncle who died in infancy lived a short, cruel, and painful life, but I don't think his life or death, or the lives and deaths of other children like him, were in vain. I think they inspired doctors to look for treatments for this birth defect, and inspired parents to demand them.

It's funny, isn't it? Our ancestors for most of human history suffered pain without painkillers and when surgery was performed, it was done with crude skills and crude tools and no anesthetic. Children died in droves from diseases for which there was no cure or preventative vaccination. Any birth defect, whether cosmetic or disabling was yours for a lifetime. Now we have painkillers, anesthetics, well-trained and well-equipped surgeons, vaccinations, antibiotics, and even a few antiviral agents, and we talk about ending life preemptively to avoid suffering.