“At present parents can choose to keep or destroy their disabled offspring only if the disability happens to be detected during pregnancy. There is no logical basis for restricting parents’ choice to these particular disabilities.
If disabled newborn infants were not regarded as having a right to life until, say, a week or a month after birth it would allow parents, in consultation with their doctors, to choose on the basis of far greater knowledge of the infant’s condition than is possible before birth.”
Practical Ethics, 2nd edition, Cambridge, 1993
In other words, parents should be allowed to kill their infant up to one month after birth.
While ghastly, the above statement is logically consistent with the belief that humans have no more dignity or worth than any other so called evolved animal. And as the founder of the animal rights movement, this is what Peter Singer believes and writes in “Practical Ethics”.
Bad ideas are weaponised when launched by a person of influence. Unfortunately, as a professor of Bioethics at Princeton University in America, Peter Singer is just that. This is yet another example of why one should spend more time on someone’s statement than their qualifications.
As logically consistent as his view is, it’s the brute reality of real life application which truly tests how robust a worldview is in the real world. In other words, it may make sense but does it actually work? Take a look at what happens when Singer has to go from theorising about a person with a disability to actually talking to one….
- At 36 minutes, 47 seconds: “…everybody who wants to go on living I think ought to be given the greatest possible support to enjoy their life and to have the most fulfilling life and that’s completely irrespective of what disabilities they may have.”
This doesn’t square with Singer’s calls to legalise the killing of infants up to 1 month old. How does one assess that an infant doesn’t want to go on living? And why only up to 1 month? Why should we be restricted to just infanticide? Why not older humans? His support of euthanasia is certainly a start on this slippery slope.
Furthermore, by saying that it is acceptable to kill those of differing ability before and after birth, Singer is reducing them from someone to something. A disposable something. By creating a culture which kills such individuals, Singer makes “the greatest support to enjoy their life and to have the most fulfilling life” impossible. - At 42 minutes, 17 seconds: “Peter, you sort of doubled down on your original observation when you later said, “I don’t want my health insurance premiums to be higher so infants who can experience zero quality of life can have expensive treatments.””
That isn’t consistent with the above thought that everyone should “..be given the greatest possible support to enjoy their life and to have the most fulfilling life and that’s completely irrespective of what disabilities they may have.”
It is telling that infants are the target of Singer’s discussion on killing. Infants are members of our human family who cannot protect themselves physically, verbally or politically. This might be exactly why he wasn’t able to fully engage Kath Duncan or make the connection (perhaps purposely so) between her and these theoretical infants he is killing.
But this is more than theoretical. Talk is never cheap as ideas have consequences. This is why we cannot and must not let ideas like this go unchallenged. Lives depend on it.
Barry
Peter Singer is the very face of evil. It is really difficult to even comprehend such warped thinking…on second thought, perhaps not so when one considers that this kind of thinking begins with the notion that there is no God to whom we will be accountable. Singer does not seem to realise that using his own warped logic, another could argue that he, Singer, ought to be…how should I say this…put down or removed or disposed of or killed.
Kevin.Tam
Singer certainly has been a big part of the thinking process which has created an extremely unsafe culture for the vulnerable. As for him being a target of “selective euthanasia”, yes, I always find it fascinating that those who talk of aborting/killing certain members of the human family don’t talk of it for people like themselves. Or as I heard it once said, “It’s funny how all those people who are “pro-choice” have themselves been born.”
Adrian Tam
Excuse me if I’m paraphrasing anyone, but once an egg is fertilised, and barring any problems in the pregnancy, a human being is created. Whether it needs nourishment via placenta, mouth or an intravenous drip is irrelevant to whether it is a human being or not.
If you accept that, then logic dictates that if a human being can be killed before birth for a certain reason, then it can be killed at any time for that same reason.
Kevin.Tam
Logic not only dictates disasters, it publishes: “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” – you’ll note that the authours are from Melbourne. Singer is also from Melbourne – what’s in the water/air there?? “Learned Fools” as my wife says. As for the logic of humanity, here’s a summary: S.L.E.D.G. abortion.
Abortion's Spirit 2 - Chauvinism - All Of Us
[…] insight into the strange logic used to justify the killing. No insight into the cheap worldview which allows this to happen in […]