by Lori A. Wood
This article is intended to provoke thought and discussion. The views expressed in it are not necessarily those of United Spinal Association or its employees. This is Part 1 of a two-part series on the ethics of euthanasia. Your written response to this series is appreciated. Please e-mail it to orbit@unitedspinal.org or send it by letter or postcard to Orbit Editor, United Spinal Association, 75-20 Astoria Blvd., Jackson Heights, NY 11370-1177. No phone calls, please!
Opinions are like earlobes; everybody has them. But, just because this saying is considered true by most people, that doesn’t mean that their opinions don’t differ. Some views become wildly popular, and are, in time, accepted by a culture as “right” or “normal.” Sometimes, the strength of a person’s belief in one idea can blind them to the possibility that others exist; our perceptions may become clouded by the power of our convictions.
Peter Singer, a bioethics professor at Princeton University since 1999, is all too aware of this tendency. His controversial views on the nature of personhood and disability have earned their fair share of criticism. “I use the term ‘person’ in a way that goes back, philosophically, for hundreds of years,” he says. “John Locke used it in the seventeenth century to refer to a being with self-awareness and a sense of their own existence, over time. Essentially, a person is someone who can understand that they are a being who exists with a past and who may have a future. I guess I also argue that having this capacity to be aware of your existence over time is significant in terms of the wrongness of killing a being, because, only if a being is aware of having a future, can they have desires for that future. Only in that sense can ending that being’s life be something that’s contrary to his or her wishes, desires or preferences. So I think that puts the killing of such a being in a different category,” he explains.
“In my view, a newborn infant is not a person, whether they’re disabled or not. I think that there should be options for making life and death decisions for newborn infants, which do not exist for later beings who have become persons. In addition, there may be some people with severe cognitive disabilities who never become persons. In that case, the question about ending the life of someone with that kind of disability is like the question of ending the life of a newborn infant, I think different from ending the life of someone who is a person.”
According to a 2003 Liberty Post article, a group called Princeton Students Against Infanticide claimed that Singer “denies the intrinsic moral worth of an entire class of human beings-newborn infants.”
Called everything from “the most dangerous man in the world” to “Professor Death” by his opponents, Singer’s comments have been known to ignite passionate responses. “Already we allow the killing of an infant in his mother’s womb,” says Dr. David Oderberg, a philosopher at University of Reading in the U.K. “But Peter Singer takes it one step further. He wants to justify the killing of the infant outside the womb, in the rocking chair.”
Singer’s position on the matter is not quite so cut and dried. Years ago, the notion of a 28day cutoff point after birth was proposed to determine whether a disabled child should survive, which had been mentioned in Should the Baby Live?: The problem of handicapped infants, a 1985 book co-authored by Singer. “In that book, we were looking for some way of drawing a line, and this had been suggested by a group of parents of children with disabilities in England. I think they took it from an ancient Greek line.”
According to the custom, 28 days after birth, disabled babies could no longer be exposed on the side of a mountain. It was a way of killing them, since they were not considered full citizens of society. A ceremony was performed to make them citizens. “The ceremony was performed with infants who had not been exposed, 28 days after they were born,” Singer states. “Then they could no longer be exposed.” It would have been far more humane, Singer contends, to have parents kill the child quickly and instantly. “The Greek custom of exposing disabled infants in preference to killing them in a humane fashion was a bit cowardly,” he says. “I don’t hold the 28-day line anymore. I don’t think it’s feasible to have any particular cutoff. We [my colleagues and I] were unsure as to whether we could even have a cutoff point. Now, I think it’s too arbitrary to have one. Whether it’s 27 or 29 days, it’s not going to really make the difference. Having a physical disability is not relevant to whether you’re a person or not. I do think that, for example, during pregnancy, or immediately after birth, when a being is not a person, it would be reasonable for parents to consider the physical disabilities that a child might have, if they’re particularly severe ones. You have to try and reach a decision with the doctors and parents together, as soon after birth as you can.”
In Singer’s estimation, this does not mean that such medical decisions should automatically dictate killing the child, or that those who make the determination to do so should take it lightly. “I’m not saying that it’s necessarily a trivial matter to kill a being who isn’t a person,” he explains, “but I think if a being is a person and has that capacity to see themselves existing over time, that makes the issue of killing more serious than it would be if the being was not a person. I don’t think the species of a being is crucial to how wrong it is to kill a being. What it depends on is the nature of the being.”
For example, there are cases where the degree of brain function is negligible, such as with anencephaly. This term, derived from the Greek word for “no brain,” describes a condition in which an infant is born with a brain stem and legally alive, but who is missing the parts of the brain associated with consciousness.
“A human being that is never going to be able to say or do anything, or recognize his or her mother, basically is not a conscious being at all,” Singer claims. “I think it’s probably true that a normal chimpanzee has a more worthwhile life than a person like that. In that sense, I guess you could say there could be circumstances in which it would be more serious to take the life of a non-human than a human. It’s not a general view of mine. It’s just that, once you get rid of the view that somehow being a member of the species homo sapiens makes your life valuable in itself, irrespective of your characteristics, then you’re going to look at individuals for what their lives are like, not for what species they belong to.”
While some may argue that these statements advocate genocide, Singer sees it more as a matter of choice. “The decision to terminate a pregnancy should, largely, be a woman’s decision,” he declares. “I think that, in the first days after birth, where there is a serious disability, it should be the parents’ decision.” Still, in these situations, he seems to suggest that parental decisions should not necessarily be absolutes. “Doctors and parents should consult, and if the doctors think that the parents are doing something completely unreasonable, then they would have to take that matter to a court to adjudicate,” he says.
Singer acknowledges that these consultations can result in positive outcomes, as well. “If the doctors think the parents’ view is a reasonable one, in light of the condition of the infant, then I don’t think we need to get the courts involved. I don’t want to say that [this applies to] any particular condition,” he states.
Singer’s philosophical leanings are largely utilitarian, a school of thought that considers the consequences of an action rather than the nature of the act itself. His comments on the subject reflect this concept. “I do think that it [the decision to let a disabled baby live] would depend on the parents’ views on to what extent they can love the child, give it a good home, and to what extent they want to care for that child. I think that makes a huge difference. It would depend on the circumstances, but in some cases, having a child with severe disabilities can be a serious burden for couples and existing families. It would depend on the resources available to them. Those with plenty of money may cope better than those without. If the disability is a severe one, you can’t really doubt that it is an additional burden to families who can’t afford to bring in extra help. [It also] may depend on whether the society they live in provides much assistance.”
There is no question that Peter Singer’s position regarding disabilities inspires controversy and, while he accepts that fact, he makes a seemingly reasonable request of his detractors. “Obviously, people have the right to protest, and I respect their right to express their views. But I would ask them to make sure that they get my views right, to actually read what I write, and not to read someone else who’s describing what I say, perhaps not quite accurately. A short quotation doesn’t give the context or the reasons why I take the views that I do.”
Next month, Orbit will investigate another side of this issue in a conversation with Stephen Drake, research analyst at the disability advocacy group Not Dead Yet.
Lori A. Wood is a frequent contributor to Orbit.
