Frances Bolton (PHI) wrote:
> While I am obviously in favor of a woman's absolute right to choose,
> I am not in favor of eugenics. The following two statements are different,
> "I do *not* want this baby." and "I do not want *this* baby." The former
> is not about the fetus. It is about not wanting to have a child. The
> second statement is directed towards a particular fetus or baby. As such,
> I think it's directed towards a *person*. Now, if I get pregnant
> and I don't want a baby, I abort it. No problem. My action is not directed
> towards another self (broadly understood).
> It has nothing to do with that fetus *in particular*. Now,
> if I get pregnant, and I want a baby, but I find out that tests show the
> child will have some kind of disability, and then I abort it, I think
> that's different. My actions are aimed towards another.
Frances,
You are so right in your critique. Adrienne Asche who is an ethicist and is blind has made this distinction as well in her writings about selective abortion for sex and disability.
I would like to point out that Singer is an "animal rights" activist, that is where he gained tremendous popularity. It is really a contradiction, he says he doesn't believe in "rights" but he makes an exception where animals are concerned. The following excerpt is taken from "Practical Ethics," by Peter Singer. It's the second edition and its latest printing is from this year (2 printings in 1997).
"In Chapter 4 we saw that the fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings,or any other self-conscious beings. This conclusion is not limited to infants, who, because of irreversible intellectual disabilities, will never be rational, self-conscious beings. We saw in our discussion of abortion that the potential of a fetus to become a rational, self-conscious being cannot count against killing it at a stage when it lacks these characteristics - not, that is, unless we are also prepared to count the value of rational self-conscious life as a reason against contraception and celibacy. No infant - disabled or not - has a strong claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time."
Singer says, " I think society has a right to step in if a policy is going to cause social problems, ie disproportionate numbers of one sex." This means that the issue is not any more the 'right of free choice for parents' but it is now the 'right of society to sanction and decide the free choice for parents'. Singer would probably support what the Chinese are doing under the one baby rule - killing the female babies because the families believe that they need a son in order to survive hardships.
We've heard this "right of society" line before, it has been used to sterilize and exterminate disabled people, gays, deaf, gypsies, blacks, alcoholics, Jews, any social "deviant."
It is interesting that in Australia the increase of push for disability selection and the popularity of Singer seems to go hand in hand with the erosion of human rights for disabled people in Australia in the moment (the disability movement has lost a lot of ground in the last 2-3 years there).
The political strength of people with disabilities (and women) seems to weigh in as a *big* factor as to how far someone like Singer can get. That is the reason to be concerned with his appointment to Princeton where he will have a credible platform for his ideas in this country.
Marta