> This is a retyping of the OP-ED article, "A Messenger of death at
> Princeton", by David S. Oderberg, Lecturer in philosophy at the
> University of Reading, England, which appeared in THE WASHINGTON TIMES,
> on June 30, 1998, page A17.
> And all emphases are in the original:
>
> "Princeton University has just announced its appointment of the Australian
> philosopher Peter Singer to the Ira W. DeCamp Professorship of Bioethics at
> the University Center for Human Values. No doubt this august institution is
> congratulating itself on its coup, and Prof. Singer guietly pleased at such
> weighty recognition of his work, which has been highly influential in applied
> ethics for over 25 years. And yet there will be many people deeply disturbed
> by this appointment, particularly by the message it sends to the most
> vulnerable members of society.
> "The U.S. has been largely insulated from the controversy surrounding Prof.
> Singer's work; here he is seen mainly as a crusader for animal rights (though
> he does not in fact believe in rights) and the environment. These, however,
> are but one aspect of his philosophical activity. It is for his other work
> that he has been dogged by controversy wherever he goes, in Britain, Germany,
> Switzerland, Austria and of course in Australia, where he has been called that
> country's "most notorious messenger of death" by the Catholic archbishop of
> Singer's home town of Melbourne and denounced by some of Australia's leading
> rabbis.
> "It is Mr. Singer's writings and speeches on eugenics, euthanasia, and the
> rights of babies, children, the elderly and the disabled, and the (lack of)
> value of human life in general, that are the focus of attention in so many
> countries. In the late 1980s a major international philosophy conference in
> Austria had to be canceled because of protests by disabled groups and threats
> to disrupt the proceedings. In 1996 demonstrators tried to storm a building
> in Bonn, Germany, where Prof. Singer was launching his latest book. Young
> protesters, some in wheelchairs, chanted "Singer out!" Three parliamentarians
> from Chancellor Kohl's Christian Democratic party compared Mr. Singer to
> Hitler's henchman Martin Bormann. Prof. Singer can now hardly speak on the
> Continent without being assailed by the protests of the disabled, who
> sometimes chain themselves to barricades outside his lecture venues.
> "Several weeks ago controversy flared in the British media (not for the first
> time) as Mr. Singer arrived for a series of lectures. He was denounced as
> "the man who would kill disabled babies", and described as a threat to
> civilized human values. Now, given that he has just been appointed to a chair
> at Princeton's Center for Human Values, and assuming that such a prestigious
> university is not deliberately setting out to undermine human values, one must
> ask: Who is right - Princeton or the protesters?
> "Consider the evidence. Prof. Singer has said in print, time and again, that
> disabled babies and children have no right to life. Indeed, only human beings
> with 'lives worth living" are worthy of serious protection, and even they have
> no right to life as such, since talk of rights is, he says, "a convenient
> political shorthand" for "the era of thirty-second TV news clips." As he
> argues in his notorious book, "Should the Baby Live?", if a human being has a
> life not worth living it can be permissible, and sometimes even a duty, to
> kill such a one.
> "One might be forgiven for thinking Mr. Singer only has in mind babies and
> infants with serious disabilities. (Babies and infants, by the way, are not
> real persons for him because they are not "rational and self-aware"; they
> don't even reach first base as far as moral value goes.) No, he goes further,
> Even an infant with a condition as mild as hemophilia can be killed if killing
> her has no "adverse effects on others." In other words, if the parents, and
> society at large, want the hemophiliac baby dead because she is a burden on
> them, then killing her does no wrong. If the parents go ahead and produce
> another, this time healthy (or "normal") baby, then far from the dead baby's
> having been murdered, the sum total of human happiness has been increased by
> the killing and subsequent replacement.
> "Indeed, Prof. Singer believes all "nonpersons" are, in his words,
> "replaceable," much like chickens and other farmyard animals (his analogy).
> Infants, whether "defective" or not, are not "normal human beings." (Mr.
> Singer deleted the word "defective" from the second edition of his famous book
> "Practical Ethics.") Newborn babies, have, in his own explicit and
> unbelievable analogy, the same moral value as snails. And lest anyone think
> it is just the young who are at risk in Singer's bizarre ethical universe,
> note that he is a champion of euthanasia for adult whose life is "not worth
> living".
> "For instance, elderly people might be allowed to opt out of being killed
> should they ever become "senile elderly patients," if this will prevent
> elderly people living in fear. But if the "balance of advantage" requires it,
> their opt-out should be overridden. In other words, not only is he a champion
> of voluntary euthanasia, and of non-voluntary euthanasia (for "non-persons" in
> supposedly irreversible comas and the like), but he favors also involuntary
> killing of anyone who has become a burden on their families, on the health
> care system, or on the state.
> "I have only scratched the surface of the dark moral world of Prof. Peter
> Singer. His advocacy of the harvesting of organs from disabled babies could
> also be mentioned. There is his championing of eugenics. Also his sinister
> idea that babies should only be admitted into the community as citizens in a
> ceremony one month after birth. (Why one month and not two or ten? Beats
> me.) If anyone thinks that all this is disturbingly reminiscent of the Nazis'
> own notorious euthanasia and eugenics program for "life unworthy of life"
> (lebensunwerten Lebens), they would not be far from the truth. Many
> academics, politicians, religious figures, advocates for the disabled or the
> elderly and other right-thinking people are appalled at Prof. Singer's ideas,
> and see similar sinister overtones. If Princeton University believes it is
> advancing respect for human values by its appointment of Prof. Singer, perhaps
> it should examine his views a little more closely.