Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message ----- From: Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org>
>
>
>
> >
> > What would not be a perfectly good reason for an abortion?
> >
> Singer:
> > 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.
>
> He considers sex discrimination but not disability discrimination.
> Well of course, women would be in an uproar. Disabled people are in
> an uproar and believe me he has felt the pinch.
>
Marta>
Do "nonpersons" like fetuses feel pain? I thought it was part of the
> lexicon that they do not. As I recall, Singer's previous argument
> was that "nonpersons," including infant,s do not feel pain and that
> makes it OK to kill them.
Ken: Where did you ever get this idea? At a certain stage fetuses do feel pain and can suffer and thus have moral standing. As Singer puts it the criterion for being part of the moral community is that one can suffer not that one can reason. However, only persons have a right to life and to be a person requires much more than feeling pain and pleasure. Where on earth do you get the idea that Singer ever held that non-persons do not feel pain?
Ken: What makes you think he no longer considers disability discrimination?
He does.
>From the same interview with Viktor Frolke:
What to do with all the knowledge -- which is becoming available earlier and earlier these days -- about the future of a newborn?
In the case of in vitro fertilization, for instance, you could study the embryos beforehand and see what qualities that baby will or will not have and decide which embryo to implant in the uterus. That's an issue we need to have a serious debate on. Because if we don't ... it's not that it's going to go away. If we do nothing about it, some people will provide it. Some people will be willing to pay for it. Then we will have a market for genetic solutions. That doesn't seem ideal to me.
Money already plays a role in decisions about life and death. Parents of a disabled newborn might say they can't afford the extra costs of raising it. Is that a good argument for infanticide?
When do they know it's disabled?
According to your theory that doesn't matter. There's no crucial difference between abortion and infanticide, because neither the fetus nor the newborn is a "person."
It doesn't make any difference to the inherent right to life of the being, no. But it does make a difference in that if the child is born with a disability that would not make its life miserable, but the parents can't pay for the extra care, they could put the child up for adoption. If the disability is a mild one, that's what I think they should do. If the condition is detected during pregnancy, the woman can't give up the child unless she goes through with the whole thing until birth, which is asking a lot more than simply saying, "I don't think you can rear this child; here's another couple that could."
" For Singer, life is not something to which all beings have an equal right. In particular, membership in the species Homo sapiens is not sufficient to guarantee equal treatment. In his view, the right to life belongs not to Homo sapiens per se but to what he calls "persons." Here a "person" is defined as a being with rationality, self-consciousness, autonomy, an ability to feel pleasure and pain et cetera, and, critically, an awareness of itself as existing over time. That is, a sense of its own future. As one of Singer's colleagues has put it, a person is "a being with a biography not just a biology." By this definition, neither a fetus nor a coma patient is a "person." A human being yes, but a person no. "Since no fetus is a person," Singer writes bluntly, "no fetus has the same claim to life as a person." " (Margaret Wertheim, LA Weekly)
>
> You asked:
> > 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.
>
> Neither. I am not making a moral judgement at all. At the risk of
> over simplifying my position, I am arguing that capitalist production
> creates "disablement." Physical impairments are fundamentally
> socialized as disability; a state of socio-spatial exclusion from the
> mainstreams of social, economic and cultural life. Disability is not a
> problem of individual impaired bodies. It is a historical social
> creation. There are biases that have developed as a result -- one of
> them being the bias against having a disabled child and these are
> perpetuated by institutions that reproduce the status quo - one which
> thrives on producing the most exploitable bodies. Instead of
> capitulating to this social reality by eliminating "imperfect" bodies
> (this is not progress), I am calling for the rearrangment of economic
> and social realities so that disabled persons are not viewed as
> "abnormal" -- and only acceptable if they can be made "normal" i.e.,
> cured. Disability must come to be regarded as a normal part of
> living. We reject the medicalized perspective of disability, through
> which we are regarded as flawed human beings who will never be
> completely socially or economically acceptable unless we are cured.
>
> best,
> Marta
KEN: To speak of biases is not to make a moral or value judgment? To speak of "normal" without quotes is not to make a value or moral judgment? Something is called "not progress"? Anyway do you not take a position on the right of a woman to abortion on demand? That is really what I was wondering about?
I agree that "disability" is in many respects a social creation but it is based upon some biological facts surely. I also wonder if non-capitalist societies are any better than capitalist societies in creating a "problem of disability"? Were attitudes in the former USSR any more enlightened. I doubt Sparta regarded the disabled as normal, and Plato was ruthless in his treatment of the disabled infant or even sick adult.