7521 Madison St * Forest Park, IL 60130 * Voice/TTY: 708-209-1500 * Fax: 708-209-1735 * TTY: 708-209-1826

The quotes below are from Peter Singer's book Rethinking Life and Death, which he will be teaching this fall at Princeton. Additional material can be found in his book Practical Ethics, also listed in the course description, and in the older book Shou ld the Baby Live?, which he co-authored with Helga Kuhse.

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.

"We often use 'person' as if it meant the same as 'human being'. In recent discussions in bioethics, however, 'person' is now often used to mean a being with certain characteristics such as rationality and self-awareness." [page 180]

"[T]he term 'person' is no mere descriptive label. It carries with it a certain moral standing. Just as, in law, the fact that a corporation can be a person means that a corporation can sue and be sued, so too, once we recognise a nonhuman animal as a person, we will soon begin to attribute basic rights to that animal." [page 182]

"The right to life is not a right of members of the species Homo sapiens; it is … a right that properly belongs to persons. Not all members of the species Homo sapiens are persons, and not all persons are members of the species Homo sapiens." [page 206]

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."

"There remains, however, the problem of the lack of any clear boundary between the newborn infant, who is clearly not a person in the ethically relevant sense, and the young child, who is. In our book, Should the Baby Live?, my colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggested that a period of twenty-eight days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others." [page 217]

"We need to find another way of responding to human beings who can never be conscious. While the Royal Children's Hospital panel was unable to reach consensus on taking organs from infants with no prospect of ever gaining consciousness, this highly d iverse group of people did agree that we need not keep such babies alive. … If it is not possible to find a tenable basis for declaring people to be dead who have irreversibly lost - or never had - consciousness, we may still be able to find a justificat ion for ending their lives." [page 55]

Singer says that killing a "non-person," even if it is human, does not carry the same moral weight as killing a "person."

"Only a person can want to go on living, or have plans for the future, because only a person can even understand the possibility of a future existence for herself or himself. This means that to end the lives of people, against their will, is differen t from ending the lives of beings who are not people. Indeed, strictly speaking, in the case of those who are not people, we cannot talk of ending their lives against or in accordance with their will, because they are not capable of having a will on such a matter. …. [K]illing a person against her or his will is a much more serious wrong than killing a being that is not a person. If we want to put this in the language of rights, then it is reasonable to say that only a person has a right to life." [pa ges 197-198]

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.

"Like cosmology before Copernicus, the traditional doctrine of the sanctity of human life is today in deep trouble. ….

"It is time for another Copernican revolution. It will be, once again, a revolution against a set of ideas we have inherited from the period in which the intellectual world was dominated by a religious outlook. Because it will change our tendenc y to see human beings as the centre of the ethical universe, it will meet with fierce resistance from those who do not want to accept such a blow to our human pride. At first, it will have its own problems, and will need to tread carefully over new groun d. For many the ideas will be too shocking to take seriously. Yet eventually the change will come. The traditional view that all human life is sacrosanct is simply not able to cope with the array of issues that we face. The new view will offer a fresh and more promising approach." [page 189]

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 an d individuals who would like to adopt the child, so the child should be kept alive and put up for adoption.

"Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons. Hence their lives would seem to be no more worthy of protection than the life of a fetus.

"Must we accept this shocking conclusion? Or does birth somehow make a difference, in some way that has so far been overlooked? Perhaps our focus on the status of the fetus and the infant has led us to neglect other aspects of the situation. He re are two ways in which birth may make a difference, not so much to the fetus/infant and its claim to life, but to others who are affected by it.

"First, after birth the pregnant woman is no longer pregnant. The baby is outside her body. Thus her claim to control her own body and her own reproductive system is no longer enough to determine the life or death of the newborn baby. ….

"The second different birth makes is that if the baby's mother does not want to keep her child, it can be cared for by someone else who does. This reason for preserving infant life is strong in a society in which there are more couples wanting to adopt a baby than there are babies needing adoption. It is no reason at all for preserving infant life if there are babies in need of adoption, and no-one willing to adopt them. The coming of effective contraception and safe legal abortion have moved m ost developed nations sharply into the former status (though not, unfortunately, if we focus on babies with major disabilities, whom very few couples are willing to adopt). In these societies there is an important reason to protect the lives of babies, e ven those unwanted by their parents. In societies that have difficulty killing unwanted children and so have traditionally accepted infanticide, this is not a reason for preserving infant life." [pages 210-211]

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 unha ppier life than other people. And therefore the reasons not to kill non-disabled infants do not apply to disabled infants.

"To have a child with Down syndrome is to have a very different experience from having a normal child. It can still be a warm and loving experience, but we must have lowered expectations of our child's abilities. We cannot expect a child with Down sy ndrome to play the guitar, to develop an appreciation of science fiction, to learn a foreign language, to chat with us about the latest Woody Allen movie, or to be a respectable athlete, basketballer or tennis player. Even when an adult, a person with Do wn syndrome may not be able to live independently; and for someone with Down syndrome to have children of their own is unusual and can give rise to problems. For some parents, none of this matters. They find bringing up a child with Down syndrome a rewa rding experience in a thousand different ways. But for other parents, it is devastating.

"Both for the sake of 'our children', then, and for our own sake, we may not want a child to start on life's uncertain voyage if the prospects are clouded. When this can be known at a very early stage of the voyage we may still have a chance to m ake a fresh start. This means detaching ourselves from the infant who has been born, cutting ourselves free before the ties that have already begun to bind us to our child have become irresistible. Instead of going forward and putting all our efforts in to making the best of the situation, we can still say no, and start again from the beginning. That is what Molly Pearson was doing when, told that she had given birth to a Down syndrome baby, she said to her husband, 'I don't want it, Duck'." [pages 213 -214]

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 fo r transplantation to other infants who could grow up to be non-disabled.

"It must be extraordinarily difficult to cut oneself off from one's own child, and prefer it to die, so that another child with better prospects can be born. Yet many women think like this when they discover that they are pregnant with an abnormal ch ild. We saw that there was broad public support for Sherri Finkbane's efforts to abort a fetus after she had taken thalidomide during pregnancy. Today, prenatal diagnosis is routine for older women, who are more at risk of having a baby with Down syndro me. It is premised on the assumption that if the test shows a fetus with Down syndrome or other abnormalities, an abortion will follow. When the pregnancy was a wanted one, the couple will usually then try to conceive another child." [page 214]

"In our book, Should the Baby Live?, my colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggested that a period of twenty-eight days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others." [page 217]

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 s tate," and "severely brain-damaged" are applied are likely to have that judgment applied to them.

"We all like the notion of the intrinsic worth of human life. We accept such a noble idea without much critical scrutiny, as long as it does not restrict us from doing what we really think is important. Then one day we find it is making us do things that are manifestly pointless, or likely to lead to disaster. So we take a better look at the fine phrases we so readily accepted. And start to winder why we ever believed them in the first place. Then we drop them.

"This chapter describes a recent case concerning a young man named Anthony Bland, in which Britain's most eminent judges were forced to reexamine the fine sentiments summarised by John Keown. Nine judges had to ask themselves: could they really believe that every human life is intrinsically valuable? Could they really believe that it is always wrong intentionally to end the life of an innocent human being?" [page 57]

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.

"Whatever the advances of modern medicine might permit, neither Tony Bland's family, nor Dr J. G. Howe, the doctor in charge of his care, nor Dr Michael Johnson, a specialist whose opinion Dr Howe had sought, nor the Airedale General Hospital in which he was a patient, could see any benefit to him, or to anyone else, in keeping him alive for decades." [pages 58-59]

"The case of Anthony Bland has, for the moment, settled the question of the state of the law in Britain regarding patients who can never regain consciousness. The lives of such patients are of no benefit to them, and so doctors may lawfully stop feed ing them in order to end their lives. With this decision the law has ended its unthinking commitment to the preservation of human life that is a mere biological existence. The law lords have taken the brave step of recognising that, at a minimum, consci ousness is essential if continued life is to be worth having. In doing so they have shifted the boundary between what is and what is not murder." [pages 79-80]

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.

"First New Commandment: Recognise that the worth of human life varies. …

"Consistent with the first new commandment, we should treat human beings in accordance with their ethically relevant characteristics. Some of these are inherent in the nature of the being. They include consciousness, the capacity for physical, social , and mental interactions with other beings, having conscious preferences for continued life, and having enjoyable experiences. Other relevant aspects depend on the relationship of the being to others, having relatives for example who will grieve over yo ur death, or being so situated in a group that if you are killed, others will fear for their own lives. All of these things make a difference to the regard and respect we should have for a being." [pages 190-191]

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 an ything else that can plausibly be considered morally significant.

"The editor received more than fifty letters protesting against my views in this commentary, several condemned the editor for allowing it to be published. Many of the correspondents protested particularly against the comparison of the intellectual abilities of a human being and a dog or a pig. Yet the sentence that so disturbed them is not only true, but obviously true." [page 201, emphasis in the original]