FACT SHEET ON PETER SINGER
Personhood
According to Singer, to be ethical, we must treat all "persons" according
to moral guidelines. But not all humans are "persons." Singer claims
that in order to be "persons" and to deserve moral consideration, beings
must be self-aware, and capable of perceiving themselves as individuals
through time.
Singer claims that no newborn infants are "persons." He claims that some
people with life-long cognitive disabilities never become "persons" at
any time throughout their lives. And he claims that some people who
acquire cognitive disabilities through injury, Alzheimer's Disease, or
other means cease to be "persons."
Singer says that killing a "non-person," even if it is human, does not
carry the same moral weight as killing a "person."
Infanticide
It may be all right, according to Singer, to kill infants. Because they
are not "persons," they have no interest in staying alive, and it is
only superstition that makes us think that killing them is intrinsically
wrong.
Singer is quick to note that it is still wrong to kill most infants, for
other reasons. The killing of an infant would, in most cases, make the
parents unhappy. Second, in the cases where the parents do not want the
infant, there are other couples and individuals who would like to adopt
the child, so the child should be kept alive and put up for adoption.
But infants with known disabilities, and especially cognitive
disabilities, he says, do not bring the same amount of happiness into the
lives of their parents. Additionally, the very fact that someone is
disabled means that he or she will have an unhappier life than other
people. And therefore the reasons not to kill non-disabled infants do not
apply to disabled infants.
Singer argues that it should be legal for parents to decide to have their
disabled infants killed up to 28 days after birth. This way, he says,
parents could have non-disabled replacements. In addition, the infants
would provide a source of organs for transplantation to other infants who
could grow up to be non-disabled.
Euthanasia
It may be all right, according to Singer, to kill people whose doctors
claim they are severely cognitively disabled. Although Singer doesn't
give a list, we know that people to whom labels like "mentally retarded,"
"demented," "persistent vegetative state," and "severely brain-damaged"
are applied are likely to have that judgment applied to them.
Singer claims that such people are not "persons," and therefore can not
be said to have an interest in staying alive. Unless the benefit to the
people who love these "non-persons" outweighs the emotional and financial
burden to individuals and society of keeping them alive, they can safely
and deliberately be killed.
The euthanasia of people whose minds are judged inadequate would be a way
to save money. It would be a way to allow families to "move on." And it
would provide a source of organs for transplantation to people whose minds
have been judged acceptable. According to Singer, very often people with
cognitive disabilities should be killed.
Academic Dishonesty
In building his case, Singer makes many assertions that he does not
support, because they can not be supported.
Singer writes as if impairment itself guarantees that people with
disabilities will have fewer opportunities in life. He ignores the fact
that many of the barriers people with disabilities face every day are
created and sustained by the very society he claims should be allowed to
kill them.
He leads readers to believe that if some medical professionals judge the
lives of people with disabilities as not worth living, that is indicative
of how people with disabilities judge their own lives. In fact, study
after study has shown that medical "experts" routinely underestimate the
quality of life reported by people with disabilities.
But Singer does not include people with disabilities in the discussion of
the quality of their lives. He assumes that non-disabled academics and
professionals are better qualified to discuss what it is like to have a
disability than disabled people themselves.
Singer suggests that decisions about who is a "person" can be made
objectively and with little doubt, by doctors. In fact, doctors
routinely underestimate the capacity of people who are judged to be
mentally disabled.
In short, a lot of Singer's "logic" is smoke and mirrors. It has no more
basis in fact than the eugenic models of racial superiority and
inferiority that were widely held and respected in the first decades of
this century.
Demands for Injustice
Singer is not simply arguing academic theories. He is urging that policy
decisions be made on the basis of his ideas. His demands for "academic
freedom" are merely attempts to keep the affected people out of the
discussion.
If Singer's approach were to be put into law, as he wants, a new class of
non-citizens would be created. A group of people with disabilities would
be forced to prove that they were "persons" before even being granted the
most basic right, the right not to be killed at society's convenience.
When people assume mental capacity, they tend to find mental capacity.
When people assume mental incapacity, they tend to find mental incapacity.
To demand that people assumed to be incapable pass a higher test than
those assumed to be capable merely to stay alive is simply unjust.
Singer claims to be speaking for the vast majority of non-disabled
people. He claims he is only saying what everyone else thinks. We in the
disability community call for a clear statement on the part of people
without disabilities that we are entitled to the equal protection of the
law.
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