Most proponents of the right to die would agree with your ideas about euthanasia. But you lose them when you suggest that it's OK to kill a baby before it's 28 days old, because until that time, it is not self-aware and "doesn't have the same right to life as others."
I wrote that in 1995. I have changed my position. Now I believe you should look at every individual case.
He is against sex selection for girls but not apparently for boys in certain situations!
What would not be a perfectly good reason for an abortion?
There's a difference between early and late abortions. If you have a late abortion, where the fetus might feel pain, then I think you should have a good reason. Because then you're inflicting pain. As you go through the third trimester, you need to have more serious reasons to end a pregnancy. For instance, I would not support ending a pregnancy only because you want a boy and you're going to get a girl, because it would reinforce sex discrimination. But if you already have two boys and you want a girl, that could be enough reason for abortion.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
P.S. I haven't been following this discussion too closely. Which of the following represents your position? 1) Although it is immoral to abort a fetus that is likely to be moderately disabled a woman should have the right to such an abortion. 2) Such an abortion is immoral and ought to be prohibited by law.
By the way Singer's position now is that a disabled newborn should not be killed if someone is willing to adopt it.
----- Original Message ----- From: Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 11:34 AM Subject: Re: Beeson & Singer/ prenatal diagnosis
>
>
> Luke Weiger wrote:
> >
> > > He believes that if a baby
> > > makes a parent unhappy, that parent should have the right to kill
> > > the baby up to three months old (some such fudge line) because it > is
not
> > a "person."
> >
> > Yes, he believes that a parent should be able to kill any infant. But
where
> > does he say that a disabled person may be summarily dispatched if it
> > displeases another?
> >
> > -- Luke
>
> The justification Singer offers for killing a "non-person" is that it
> frees "persons," or society, from what they may see as the "burden"
> imposed by the life of a "non-person." In Practical Ethics, which is
> often used as a textbook, Singer advocates making it legal to kill
> disabled infants up to 28 days after birth as well as older
> "non-persons with disabilities."
>
> He places a negative value on disability.
> I have suggested that you go through the old LBO posts, cause I really
> don't have the time to rehash this.
> Marta
>
>
> July/August
> 1999
> A Defense of Genocide
> by Cal Montgomery
>
> Cal Montgomery, a member of Not Dead Yet, represented NDY at a rally
> on the Princeton campus in April protesting the appointment of Peter
> Singer to Princeton's faculty.
>
> The Australian bioethicist Peter Singer has arrived to begin a new
> position at the Princeton University Center for Human Values. Singer's
> appointment has provoked anger among disability activists. "Peter
> Singer is attempting to establish a philosophical foundation for
> denying disabled people the equal protection of the law and killing
> us for his version of the greater good," says Not Dead Yet's Diane
> Coleman. NDY, she continues, "considers his appointment a major
> affront to our
> minority group, a serious threat to our lives and, hopefully, it will
> also be a wake-up call for the entire disability movement."
>
> Although Singer is best known for his work on animal liberation, it is
> important to understand the consequences of his ethical theories for
> people with disabilities, especially since he argues that our lives
> are not always worth protecting
>
>
>
> Who Should Live?
>
> Singer's understanding of whose life should be protected comes from a
> moral theory called "preference utilitarianism." According to this
> theory, you should behave so that the result of your behavior is, to
> the greatest extent possible, in accordance with the preferences of
> those who will be affected by it, whether directly or indirectly.
>
> When you kill someone who wants to stay alive, you make it impossible
> for any of her preferences for the future to be realized -- this is
> what makes killing a particularly bad thing. But it may be morally
> praiseworthy to kill someone who wants to be killed. And killing
> someone whose preferences are likely to be frustrated even if she
> stays alive may be less blameworthy than killing someone whose
> preferences are likely to be fulfilled.
>
> But not everyone, Singer thinks, is capable of wanting to be alive.
> He argues that in order to have an interest in staying alive, you have
> to be a thinking, self-aware being and have an understanding of
> yourself as a being which endures through time. Following
> philosophical tradition, he calls such beings "persons," in
> order, as he says in his 1993 book, Practical Ethics, "to capture
> those elements of the popular sense of 'human being' that are not
> covered by 'member of the species Homo sapiens.'" Only persons, he
> says, can be said to have an interest in living and a right not to be
> killed; non-persons, by definition, cannot.
>
> Obviously, wherever Singer's ideas are accepted as the basis for
> policy, it becomes a vitally important thing to be seen as a person.
> Infants, for example, are seen as non-persons. According to Singer
> they may therefore be killed with far less justification than would be
> required if they were understood to be persons. Certain adults to whom
> labels such as "persistent vegetative state" (PVS), "profound mental
> retardation" and "dementia" are attached may also be killed with less
> justification, according to Singer.
>
> It would be okay, for example, to kill a "non-person" if you did it
> because everyone else's preferences would be more likely to be
> fulfilled if that individual were removed from their lives:that's one
> justification Singer gives for letting parents kill newborns expected
> to become disabled children. If parents, freed of responsibility for
> the disabled infant, were able to try again, says Singer, both they
> and the non-disabled child they'd ultimately raise could expect to
> live happier
> lives.
>
> "We know," he says in his 1994 book, Rethinking Life and Death, "that
> once our children's lives are properly underway, we will become
> committed to them; for that very reason, many couples do not want to
> bring up a child if they fear that both the child's life and their own
> experience of child-rearing will be clouded by a major disability."
>
> Another justification Singer offers for killing a "non-person" is that
> it frees "persons," or society, from what they may see as the "burden"
> imposed by the life of a "non-person." In Practical Ethics, which is
> often used as a textbook, Singer advocates making it legal to kill
> disabled infants up to 28
> days after birth as well as older "non-persons with disabilities."
>
> Singer's work suggests a number
> of questions:
>
> Is there a meaningful distinction between human persons and human
> non-persons? If so, is there a reason to believe that personhood or
> lack thereof is a judgment that can reliably be made?
> Are disabled people (and our families) really less likely than
> non-disabled people (and their families) to have happy lives? If so,
> what is the appropriate public response?
>
>
> Proving Personhood
>
> The distinction between "persons"
> and "non-persons" has led to Singer's prominence within the animal
> liberation movement. He argues that it is mere "speciesism" (the
> prejudice that membership in the right species is what earns beings
> moral consideration) leading us to believe that all human lives are of
> equal value. Singer wants us to recognize that many non-human animals
> should be treated with the same respect with which we believe humans
> should be treated.
>
> But his theory also allows that some humans can be treated less well.
>
> While his attack on speciesism has gained him a reputation as a
> progressive in some circles, he has been attacked in other circles
> for "intelligism" and "ableism" (prejudices that perceived
> intelligence or lack of disability is what earns beings moral
consideration).
>
> In his 1995 article, "The Proof of the Vegetable," published in the
> Journal of Medical Ethics, Australian disability advocate Chris
> Borthwick discusses ethicists' interest in "the distinction between
> those beings who are accorded the privileges of humanity and those who
> should be. The identification of a class of people who are 'humans'
> but not human, if any such could be found, would therefore be central."
>
> Borthwick argues that a diagnosis of PVS is not enough to conclude
> that someone is unconscious or that she will not recover
> consciousness. He points out that a great deal of the judgment that
> someone has PVS depends upon her failure to react in ways that seem to
> doctors to demonstrateconsciousness. We should give anyone who appears
> unconscious the benefit of the doubt, says Borthwick, pointing out
> that 58% of people judged to be permanently unconscious in one study
> were considered conscious within three years.
>
> Whether or not one accepts the idea of "non-persons," says Borthwick,
> we've shown we cannot reliably identify such individuals.
>
> But Singer assumes that we can. In Rethinking Life and Death, he
> quotes his own words, originally from a 1983 article in Pediatrics, that
>
> If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman
> animal, a dog or a pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman
> to have superior capacities, both actual and potential, for
> rationality, self-consciousness, communication, and anything else that
> can plausibly be considered morally significant.
>
> He then goes on to say that this
> assertion is "not only true, but obviously true" (emphasis in original).
>
> Borthwick shows, though, that we cannot truly be sure even that it is
> true. At best, we are making assumptions based on current theories of
> neurology and practices of intelligence testing, and treating those
> assumptions as if they were fact. Far from being obvious, this
> presumed inferiority is founded on uncertain assumptions.
>
> "If the discipline of ethics cannot cope with uncertainty, it is
> useless in the real world. If it persists in attempting to deny the
> existence of uncertainty, it may also be dangerous," says Borthwick.
>
> What Singer is advocating is that we create a class of human beings
> whose "capacities, both actual and potential," are "obviously" rather
> than uncertainly inferior, and whose members must therefore
> demonstrate, to the satisfaction of non-disabled testers, their
> personhood in order to be accorded the same rights given everyone
> else. Singer seems willing to give the benefit of the doubt to
> non-humans like pigs and dogs who haven't mastered our communication
> system. He is less willing to extend the same courtesy to humans whose
> disabilities impact communication.
>
>
> Frustrated Lives?
> Is life with a disability any more "clouded," as Singer terms it, than
> life without a disability? And if so, what should we do about it?
>
> Several studies focusing primarily on people with severe, stable
> disabilities suggest that people who have been disabled long enough to
> become accustomed to it rate their quality of life similarly to
> non-disabled people. The medical professionals treating them, though,
> tend to underestimate their subjective quality of life.
>
> "Many people assume that living with cerebral palsy means that I am
> endlessly confronted by my body's limitations," writes human services
> consultant Norman Kunc in a1995 article with his wife, Emma Van der
> Klift. "Actually, this is not my experience. Having cerebral palsy
> means living a life in which innovation, improvisation, creativity and
> lateral thinking are essential." The description of his life that Kunc
> offers readers makes it sound more like a dance than a diminishment.
> While some people with disabilities do attribute significant
> frustration to disability, it is clear that frustration is by no
> means a necessary consequence of impairment.
>
> People with disabilities do often find their preferences frustrated in
> ways that people without disabilities do not. But that frustration is
> not inherent in their impairments. Rather, it arises from an
> environment -- physical or social -- which is not designed to
> accommodate all members of the human race.
>
> What, then, ought we do about that frustration? To offer a parallel:
> Is the selective infanticide of daughters in societies where boys are
> offered many more opportunities than are girls an acceptable practice?
> The girls' lack of opportunity is not intrinsically connected with
> being born female; nonetheless, the parents and the child they will
> eventually raise can expect better prospects if daughters are
> "replaced" by sons. Singer's theory could, therefore, be used to
> justify the practice of killing off infant girls, thus guaranteeing
> sons to parents who want them. To date he has not offered that
justification.
>
> "I question whether Princeton would hire a faculty member who argued
> that parents should be permitted to kill their infant daughters so
> that they could have a son," says National Council on Disability
> chairperson Marca Bristo. And yet prejudice against people with
> disabilities is so much more pervasive and unquestioned than sexism
> that promoting identical methods directed against us raises no concern.
>
> Edward Stein of Yale University, in a recent paper on genetic
> screening and sexual orientation published in Bioethics, argues
> convincingly that choosing only to have children with characteristics
> valued by society -- such as heterosexuality -- reinforces the social
> preference for that characteristic. If this is the case, then choosing
> to have only sons -- or only children without apparent disabilities --
> produces moral consequences far beyond the effect it will have on
> one's own family.
>
> Such choices have an effect on all of us, Bristo told Princeton
> students. "Singer's core vision -- that the life of a person with a
> disability is worth less than the life of a person without a
> disability, and therefore it is okay to kill infants with disabilities
> if that is what the parent wants to do -- amounts to a defense of
> genocide."
>
> Tolerance and Speech
>
> Because Singer advocates the killing of disabled infants up to 28 days
> after birth, Christopher Benek of Princeton Students Against
> Infanticide argues that his hiring violates Princeton's "Commitment to
> Community" policy, which warns that "Abusive or harassing behavior,
> verbal, or physical, which demeans, intimidates, threatens, or injures
> another because of his or her personal characteristics or beliefs is
> subject to University disciplinary sanctions."
>
> Benek has called for Princeton either to rescind the appointment or
> abandon the policy on tolerance. He maintains that there is an
> essential difference between limiting Singer's speech,which Benek is
> not proposing, and not offering Singer a privileged position from
> which to speak.
>
> Bristo agrees. "Princeton University does not condone hate," she told
> an audience at a PSAI-sponsored rally this spring. "Princeton
> University does not abide racism or anti-Semitism or homophobia.
> Princeton University should not abide Peter Singer."