Princeton Prof Advocates Euthanizing Handicapped Babies

GolemII pointed us to this story at The Nando Times about Peter Singer, who teaches bioethics at Princeton, and some of the ruckus he's stirred up by suggesting that parents of severely disabled infants should be allowed to kill them painlessly in order to save them from a life of suffering. (more below.)

An earlier idea of Singer's, that a human life is not necessarily more valuable than an animal's, led (at least in part) to the founding of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA] and the Animal Liberation Front.

We're running this here -- after some serious soul-searching -- because Singer raises thorny ethical questions that make people think in new ways even when they don't agree with him, and if there's one thing Slashdot readers are good at, it's coming up with unique reactions to controversial ideas that cause most people to shut down their critical thinking abilities and issue emotional, knee-jerk responses.

The floor is now open. Please try to treat this as an important ethical discussion, not as flamebait. It's a serious -- if frightening -- subject, and the debate now being carried on about it in academic circles will no doubt affect the way we treat our fellow humans and other life forms, both organic and cybernetic, in the 21st century and beyond.

Comments

What happened to America

[Section9]

People protesting over an Professor of higher learning? What has this country come to?

I don't necessarily agree with his position on euthanization. That doesn't mean that I have to protest him personally.

Further more, to pressure the school to not offer him tenure is inapproptiate at best. Steve Forbes, et. all, neet to relize that there is a commitment that needs to be made. You can't choose to fund higher learning, and then tell the free-thinkers what to believe.

People who throw away pre-concieved notions and think outside of the box are the most important people to support... Lest free speech, and philisophical development come to a screeching halt.

Thank you Thomas Swift

[TheBeginner]

I would refer agreeing readers too a wonderful piece written by Thomas Swift called a Modest Proposal. In it, Mr. Swift recommends that instead of simply killing and wasting infants, that in fact the most ethical thing to do is recycle them. In other words, kill them, and eat them. If there are starving people in the world, then why should this meat go to waste? Others can use it? Is it not wrong not to use it?

Thomas Swift was being sarcastic, sadly enough, our esteemed bio"ethics" professor is not. The fact of the matter is that there are some things that just seem wrong to us. Without any use of logic, it just seems wrong that retarded children should not have the chance to live simply because they are severely disabled. In cases such as this, the basic instict we have is often correct. However, I'll admit, that there may be a logical point behind Singer's argument.

It is hard to watch someone die. Often we say that it is kinder to pull the plug than watch the suffering. Now I am an agnostic who does not find anything inherently wrong with physician-assisted suicide. However, I think there is a clear difference. One person has had a chance to lead a full life while the other has not. Whatever that life may be, isn't it true that there is at least some moral imperative to giving a child the best life possible.

What if this is all that there is? If there is no heaven or hell or afterlife? Then is it fair to the child to kill it and deprive it of everything. Existence is precious, we should treasure it for ourselves and for others. Pain tells us that we are alive. While it may be hard to watch, until a child can choose for his or herself whether or not to end his/her existence, we have an obligation to preserve that obligation.

Sorry Mr. Singer, but you are wrong.

Re:Ethics

[flesh99]

Everyone who has not read his book should just stop commenting. What he suggests is not to better help others, it is that the hapiness if the couple creates a child that is not disabled outweighs the wrong of killing a child. Read it then come back, the man is sick but I wouldn't advocate killing him and firmly believe he has a right to his beliefs even though I vehemtly disagree with him. I have know many parapelegics, asmahtics, and people with other disabilities that were happy with their life. Every one deserves a chance to live.

That said. I recently had to hlep amke a decision to stop life support for my grandmother, it was the hardest decision I ever made. The professor refers to in his book a hemophiliac child, not one with no arms or no legs.

Now for a different stance..

[Kitsune Sushi]

Alright now. Usually I'm rather reactionary, opting to respond to comments posted by others rather than taking any real intiative (except perhaps to do a line by line rip of an article or post a silly joke no one laughs at anyway). This is going to be.. a little different.

Two weeks into the school year, the 53-year-old scholar has come under fierce criticism because of his view that parents should be able to euthanize severely disabled infants. His appointment as a tenured professor at the university's Center for Human Values has led to threats, a barrage of e-mails and demonstrations.

What hubris it is for humans to even dare suggest that they are indeed exempt from natural selection. Do you think that out in the wild parents (read: animals) allow their offspring to go on living if it is clear that they can not fend for themselves? Clearly not. Only the strong survive. This is the natural way of things. The only thing that separates humans from the natural world is their disgusting way of thinking.

"I think it's a good thing to stimulate people to think," Singer said in an interview at his office Thursday. "You can't separate debate and learning."

This man is a genius. To think people condemn him for having a view that conflicts with their own. Personally, I'd switch my choice of university in order to be in one of his classes. It's nice to have an instructor who actually has intelligent thoughts.

Singer's views on euthanasia were first detailed in his 1979 book "Practical Ethics." He has written that children less than a month old have no human consciousness and that parents should be allowed to kill a severely disabled infant to end its suffering and to increase the family's happiness. "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all," he has written.

I'm not so sure about the "human consciousness" issue, having no clear recollection of my first year or two of life. But hey, whatever. I will agree that it's not always "wrong" to kill a person. I'd like to question morality itself, however.. Which brings me to:

In "Animal Liberation," which Singer considers his most important work, he argues that the life of a person is not necessarily more valuable than that of an animal. The 1975 book led to the founding of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and turned Singer into the philosophical father of the animal rights movement.

How true. Think of how many insects and other critters you step on every day, squashing the life out of them. What makes you think you're so much better? Because you can "think"? Because you can "feel"? News flash: animals can feel pain too. Ever seen a kid kick a dog? See how it whimpers? Ever seen a dog get depressed? See how sad it looks? No creature is "more deserving" of life than any other, though some are simply better built to survive it.

Also, thinking about all the vegans and vegetarians out there. They don't want to eat animals (ok, that comment was broad-sweeping.. I'll admit right now that that is not the rationale for all of them.. for those that it is, that is who the following is concerned with, alright?). Well.. guess what? Plants are alive too! Just because they can't run off, they aren't "deserving" of life? Because they can't scream, you assume they can't feel? By that line of reasoning, a mute amputee would not be deserving of life either. Think about it. (also think about how sick vegans and such get because it's so hard to maintain a healthy diet without eating any kind of animal product)

Some opponents liken his views to those of the Nazis.

Oh please! This man is talking about the ending of suffering, not the complete opposite: torturing an entire people and putting them to death. The Jews weren't "unfit" to live.. Hitler was simply a sick, very sick, man. By the way.. he also isn't advocating making euthanasia (do you people even know what that means??) mandatory, simply that parents have that option. As in nature. Again I ask: what makes you think you're above the natural order?

"He provides a convenient ethical framework for bigotry and cost-saving measures that cut lives," said Stephen Drake of the Forest Park, Ill., disability group Not Dead Yet. "I really don't think there's room for this kind of discussion."

Clearly an enlightened mind. So long as I can draw breath, I'll talk about whatever the fuck I want. You want to restrict my freedom of speech? You'll have to kill me first. Most people may not be willing to step up to the plate to defend their freedom anymore, but I'll be damned if I'm not. He obviously missed Singer's entire point.

Singer, who is married and has a daughter, says he has actually received support from some parents of disabled children.

Personally, if I were the disabled child, I'm not sure I'd want to know that my parents said that. Well, unless I was really that miserable. I don't know. I say I'm not sure because, well, I'm not disabled (subject to controversy with regards to my mental capacity, I'm sure). =P

"There's no unanimity among those who live with disabled children," he said. "If people attack me because of that belief, why aren't they going to clinics that offer prenatal testing and protesting there?"

Obviously because that would make sense. The fact that they are protesting proves that they don't make sense.

Bob Griss, a Princeton graduate who is director of the Center on Disability and Health in Washington, said when he first heard of Singer's appointment, he petitioned the university to reconsider. But after exchanging e-mails with Singer over several weeks, Griss changed his mind.

Wow.. someone actually taking the time to become more informed. More people should get a clue from this and do the same.

"I personally view him more as an ally of the disability community than our archenemy," Griss said. "I think that he's in a position to recognize the dangers of the implementation of his theoretical questions."

As I said, I don't think we're talking about mandatory stuff here. Purely an option. And it should certainly only be used in extreme circumstances. Anyone who thinks you need to be euthanised because of a minor defect is clearly nuts. Only those disabilities which inhibit a person's ability to actually live life and survive in the world should be considered. And no, it's not about saving money, you loons. Gah. Not everyone thinks about your precious fucking money! Get off it!

Singer eats no meat, wears no leather and donates one-fifth of his income to international aid organizations.

This I find odd. ;) However, I'm not going to disagree with the man personally because he has chosen this way of life, nor does it cause me to discredit the main point he has come under fire for simply because I disagree with him here. I never said there was anything wrong with not eating meat, just that it seems silly to me. If people don't want to eat (or wear) animals, that's fine. But plants are living things too.. And you have to eat something .. Of course, all of that is premature. I'd like to know why he doesn't eat meat/wear leather. ;)

In a New York Times Magazine article, Singer wrote that members of affluent Western societies should donate at least 10 percent of their income to help ease starvation in poor countries. The article resulted in $75,000 in unexpected donations to Oxfam over three weeks, spokeswoman Peggy Connolly said.

Clearly this man is the root of all evil..? Ha!

The attention has put Princeton in the difficult position of ensuring Singer's place without defending - or condemning - his views. The university has provided him with a guarded classroom and promised to maintain his safety and that of the 23 students taking his course, "Questions of Life and Death."

This really saddens me. Perhaps one day the U.S. really will be about learning and free thought again, rather than ignorance and submission.

"Some of the controversy can be attributed to misrepresentation or misinterpretation of his views," university President Harold T. Shapiro wrote in an editorial for the Daily Princetonian last November, shortly after Singer was appointed. "But some of the controversy arises from the fact that he works on difficult and provocative topics and in many cases challenges long-established ways of thinking - or not thinking - about them."

I'm going to wager on the "not thinking" theory. People really should open up their minds and actually think about things. A lack of questioning.. is decidedly unhealthy. Just think how horrible your life would be if you never questioned anything and simply accepted everything the way it was. No, seriously, close your eyes and just try to imagine..

Pretty fucking scary if you ask me.

"If people read this as part of a broader context," he said, "they understand that I'm trying to alleviate the amount of unnecessary suffering in the world."

Well, I'm all for it. I'm also for anything that brings us closer to recognizing that we are indeed a part of the natural world rather than its ultimate masters. Humans always try to manipulate the other creatures on this earth, and think themselves to be above all else. Humans as a whole have the right to decide the fate of entire species, trimming their numbers as "appropriate" (coyotes and wolves are evil.. kill the fuckers! no one cares about animal species until they are already on the brink of extinction.. and then it's too late.. humans don't have clue 1 about how to balance the natural order because it's far to complex to predict or even assess properly), yet parents can't even have the right to decide if their child is healthy enough to survive in the world?

Throw off the shackles of conventional "thought", and actually ponder these weighty issues before making a snap judgement. The world will be better off for it.

Also note the difference between "fit to survive" and "deserving of life". All things are deserving of life, whether you think so or not. However, not all things were built to survive. Sad to many of us? Yes. A fact of nature? Yes. Morality is wholly in your mind. There is nothing natural about it. Do you think nature is guided by some greater morality? No. It's something completely different, something most people clearly do not even understand, although they damn well should .

Re:Now for a different stance..

[Zach Frey]

My turn to be a touch "reactionary," as you put it ...

What hubris it is for humans to even dare suggest that they are indeed exempt from natural selection.

Who made "natural selection" God that we ought to be subject to it? Since when is "might makes right, all hail the surviving lifeforms" a moral philosophy immune to criticism? Do you truly think that is is "hubris" to believe that it's wrong for us to murder each other?

This man is a genius. To think people condemn him for having a view that conflicts with their own.

I see little evidence of "genius" on Singer's part. Oh, I'm sure his IQ is respectably above 100. But he's not really developed anything new here. At most, he's articulating the logical conclusion of a line of thought that's fairly obvious given the premises. And he certainly has a knack for publicity-generating pushing of hot buttons, but that doesn't count as "genius" in my estimation.

I don't condemn Singer for having a viewpoint that's different than mine. There are lots of folks whom I don't agree with that I can respect. But I do condemn Singer for the particular viewpoint that it's OK to kill kids if they don't measure up. Same as I (arrogantly, no doubt) would condemn other people for viewpoints that say it's OK to kill people if they're not of the Chosen Race, or that it's OK rape women, or any number of other things.

[On the comparison of Singer to the Nazis:] Oh please! This man is talking about the ending of suffering, not the complete opposite: torturing an entire people and putting them to death. The Jews weren't "unfit" to live.. Hitler was simply a sick, very sick, man.

Hitler was not simply a sick man, he was an evil man. That's a distinction that tends to get lost these days.

Keep in mind that one lesson we ought to have learned from the Nazis is that concerns about "suffering" and "compassion" can go hand in hand with a willingness to see millions die. Adolf Hitler was not a drooling monster, despite his great evil. He was apparantly nice to animals and children, didn't kick the dog, was even vegetarian. Somehow, this tenderness of heart failed him when looking at the Jews, though. And Himmler had a "compassionate" reason for ordering the construction of the gas chambers, because he felt sorry for the anguish that German soldiers were feeling carrying out the orders to execute the 'human-seeming' Jews. So he found a way to automate the process, to reduce the amount of suffering in the world ...

Singer talks about reducing suffering, but the result, if his ideas are adopted, will almost certainly be the death of millions.

Throw off the shackles of conventional "thought", and actually ponder these weighty issues before making a snap judgement. The world will be better off for it.

This is namecalling. It's a sophisticated way of saying "if you don't think like me, you're obviously not thinking."

This also assumes that we get to declare answers based upon any sort of moral tradition out of bounds, as "shackles" to be thrown off rather than foundations to be built upon. Personally, I find a moral tradition that says society does not have a right to have me or my children killed because we might not measure up to some "standard" to not be much of a shackle at all. Liberating, even.

And just to show that I have spent some thought on this, let me point out that Singer himself is not being entirely consistant here. Would he begin to eat meat or wear leather if we could assure him that the animals were killed "painlessly"? If not, then why the insistance on "painless" euthanasia for children? Why not simply throw them to the dogs, or expose them to the elements, as was done by earlier tribes? It would seem that he values bulls over babies.

What should give parents the right to decide to kill their child? Is the child property, as a dog or a goat is property? What magic criteria would have to occur before parents can no longer kill their kids? Age five days? five months? five years? Fifteen years? Passing a standardized IQ test and a physical? What is there about the parent-child relationship that gives a parent the right to kill a "useless" kid, and doesn't give an employer the right to kill a useless employee? ("Termination" would have a whole new meaning ...)

Oh, but since I think it's actually wrong to kill people, I guess I'm just incapable of "thinking" about these issues. Or perhaps simply incapable of being heard.

We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers.
-- G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World

Re:Euthanizing

[Tau Zero]

The life not worth the living? Does this kind of thinking remind you of anyone?

That's not it at all. The issue is "the life not yet begun", and the burning social question is "When does life as a human being begin?" (And the associated personal question is "Do we have any business making a new human being with X, Y and Z inherent problems and the consequent disadvantages and suffering?")

People have a lot of different attitudes about this. The Right-To-Life position is that it begins at the union of gametes (which I've heard parodied as "Life begins at erection"), and some even take issue with interfering with the gametes getting together. To the Warren Court, life which could be protected by the power of the state without reservation began at viability.

Singer starts with the premise that life qua human being is tied to conscious existence. In this he is not alone: The entire USA and the courts have no problem with proclaiming a body that's still metabolizing just fine, but can never be conscious again due to brain death, to be legally dead. Singer thinks that consciousness doesn't begin until a month or more after full-term birth and draws conclusions from this. You have no business attacking his conclusions unless you can find something wrong with his premises.
--
Deja Moo: The feeling that

Very mixed feelings ...

[fable2112]

*deep breath* OK, here goes.

This is, in some ways, a bit like the "partial birth abortion" debate. Third trimester abortions are NOT done in this country unless there is a severe risk to the life of the mother, or the infant is not viable (ie is going to be born without a large portion of its brain). It does, however, make a nice strawman for those who are against abortion. And I *do* think that in the case of a VERY severe handicap, in some cases it is kinder to let the child die. It's easier on the child, it's easier on the parents, and it's easier on society as a whole.

BUT ... the problem quickly becomes one of line-drawing. My boyfriend's mother works with mentally retarded adults, and they might not be the MOST productive members of society, but they aren't completely UNproductive either -- many of them have jobs, many of which us "more intelligent" folk would consider beneath our dignity to hold once we got past the age of 18. Another good example is cystic fibrosis -- 40 years ago, a "CF kid" was lucky to see an eighth birthday. Now, the average CF patient survives into his 30s. Should we kill off babies born with CF?

Which brings me to my next point: There are "severe disabilities" that are NOT apparent at birth. How old can the child become and still have the parents allowed to kill him, or at least to "let him die"? One year old? Five? Thirteen? Seventeen?

Last but not least, I am bisexual. My housemate is gay. If a "gay gene" is ever found, those who consider us "undesirable" might engage in selective abortion or infanticide. This gives me the chills on a very irrational, personal level. Likewise, I know that in ancient Scandanavia and in modern China, babies are killed or left to die for the "defect" of being female. Since I'm female, this does not sit well with me at all. "But those abuses won't happen!" How do you know that?

Nothing New

[bigdaisy]

Singer has been advocating this for years, it's hardly breaking news. (See his book Practical Ethics, for example.)

A plea for clarity, and a question for debate

[Tau Zero]

anasyphallic

Sir, you keep typing that word wrong. You mean "anencephalic".

Which does bring up a burning question. Anencephalic infants cannot survive; many die before birth, and the rest are all dead within weeks. This is all due to failure of the skull and brain to form correctly; there is no cure.

Some women carrying anencephalic fetuses have tried to donate their organs. This has not happened yet, because hospitals refuse to take the organs before clinical death (the heart stops), and by the time the heart fails the organs have been damaged by lack of oxygen and cannot be transplanted. Meanwhile, other babies die for lack of hearts, livers and kidneys.

Should we:

1. Define life as "natural circulation" and allow the current situation to continue?
2. Define life as "presence of a living cerebral cortex" and allow parents to donate their anencephalic babies' organs immediately at birth?
3. Define life as "conscious existence" a la Singer, decide that massive surgical intervention to save malformed newborns is too expensive for society to bear, and allow the parents of babies with biliary atresia (a fatal malformation of the liver) a choice between euthanasia or natural death? (Most babies with this problem die, due to lack of donor livers or rejection of transplants.)
4. Other?

Sometimes there just aren't any easy choices.
--
Deja Moo: The feeling that

But Seriously...

[The Big D]

This is an interesting field. People on both sides of the debate are often fueled by religious influences - and/or through knowing people with physical or mental handicaps.

I know a couple of people who were born with partial limbs due to thalidomide (sp?). When the big thalidomide scare was in progress, parents with "malformed" foetuses were often advised to have them aborted (by doctors). They were told that the children would have no quality of life and it was kinder to kill them at that stage.

Well, the two peeps I know are now in their 20s and very happy and successful.

Friends who have worked with the handicapped tell me that despite being restricted by communication abilities or learning difficulties, most people seem very happy.

It is too easy to think to ourselves, "Gosh, if I lost the use of my eyes I would rather die than go on like that."
A fair question does arise as to how reasonable it is to transpose those feelings onto someone else.

On the other hand, anyone who has seen/heard One by Metallica may well be able to understand this professor's attitude to the matter.

I think that the main difficulty in legislating for euthanasia is in control...what will count as severely disabled?...who should decide?...Are the parents' feelings of difficulty in coping with the child overriding the rights of the child who, with appropriate assistance, may well be very happy in life?

I'm not pro-life but do feel that there are serious questions that are difficult to cope with as regards the law.

In the Republic of Ireland, abortion is illegal. However, if a judge permits it, a pregnant woman may travel to another country for an abortion.
If the US were to introduce pro-euthansia legislation, how would it cope with parents from other countries bringing their children over to have them euthanised?

Many, many questions all round.

Re:Food for thought...

[Blade]

Isn't the issue with that, "where do we draw the line".

Ooops, wrong colour hair guys, get me the gas.

Ok, so that's an extreme view, but it helps to illustrate my point - with 6 billion people in the world, everyone's going to have a different opinion about what constitutes 'fit to live'.

The other point of course is that right up until the point of death, you have no real idea what your potential is, you might, at that last dying moment have an insight which has far-reaching effects.

You can *not* manage life on a 'return on investment' basis. IMO.

Ethics

[rde]

Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject. Some of them may be contradictory (in case the fact doesn't come through in these musings, btw, I disagree with him).

1. Citing individual cases as reasons why it's a bad idea is usually, well, a bad idea. For every Stephen Hawking there is probably someone made radical contributions to humanity which would not have happened had they devoted their time to maintaining their disabled child. A similar argument, which I've seen on several occasions, is the guy who would have died in a car crash had he been wearing a seatbelt.

2. As a species on this planet, we're genetically encoded to react against anything that endangers the next generation (and I don't mean the borg). This is why all those ridiculous "for the children" pleas are so effective. And no matter what your feelings on the subject, you'll have to agree that this is no longer necessary for the perpetuation of the human race.

3. Ethical is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Eugenics of the sort espoused by Singer, in a fascistic darwinian sort of way, contribute to the future viability of the species. However, see point two.

4. Points two and three above refer only to the continuation of the species, and ignore what could happen should indiviual human life become devalued through practices such as abortion, euthanasia and infanticide. This isn't my view, but it's one I'm willing to listen to with an open mind.

5. All laws and ethical systems are for the good of most members of society. This tyrrany of democracy inevitably has adverse consequences for the minority. Attitudes to those minorities decide whether this is viewed as a good or bad thing.

6. I'm an athiest, but that doesn't mean I can't steal the good bits from various holy books for my own philosophy. As far as I'm concerned, all philosophies that don't involve killing everyone else boil down to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'.

Hard questions don't have just one answer

[jflynn]

As noted, this topic is sensitive and people's views are going to offend each other. This is where it's very important that we remember that different thoughts are to be encouraged even when the actions they contemplate may be reprehensible to us. Exposing some values that lead people to end up on the different sides of this issue may be helpful.

Some people deeply believe that is wrong for a full adult in irremediable acute pain to decide to end their own life.

Others may be deeply empathetic with the pain they imagine in a seriously handicapped child, and think it mercy to kill the child instead.

Another group will think that this kind of euthansia will benefit society, and rather coldly decide it is a good idea for that reason.

I find all three views expressed above at least uncomfortable. I don't wish to assign a value of "true" to any one. I think you have to look at each individual case, weigh the options carefully, and make a hard decision, knowing you could be wrong. What I am sure of, personally, is that I don't want the government mandating the "one true" practice. I think the choice needs to be made at a much more local level -- between the family concerned, and their doctor, with legal advice. My pro-choice bias undoubtedly shows here, and I realize this will be no less controversial than abortion.

Note we've already had to deal with this problem in the form of acephalic babies. IIRC, It's been decided that they are braindead, and their life support may be legally terminated currently.

So it may be that the question isn't whether it is ever acceptable, but rather under which circumstances, and for what reasons. Decision where there is no obvious right or wrong should be made at the family level, with government supplying reasonable guidelines for that choice.

Listen to him: maybe he is saying something

[ObsoleteHuman]

An important question is what good is the life of a terminally demented child. Say, we are talking about infants who have no hope of recovery (with current standards of medicine), and will probably remain dysfunctional for the rest of their lives. These infants cannot think -- we can demonstrate that they do not think by means of any number of tests for neural activity. The question to ask is whether such a life is worth anything to the fuzzy cloud of Humanity. The child certainly would not mind if he were (painlessly) removed -- he would barely know that he was being killed. The parents certainly, in spite of their terrible sorrow, might not want to be burdened by a child that denies them all the pleasures of parenthood. Is the child any better than any other anthropomorphic living dead, for example a brain-dead accident victim? We do not seem to mind the fact that many brain-dead people are unplugged all the time; should we really have a different standard for brain-dead babies?

Of course this classification of "mentally-useless" is a dangerous one. I understand fully well the implications of a mis-classification, even one caused by a lacking in our current state of knowledge.

I am sorry, however, I cannot easily dismiss Singer's viewpoints as entirely invalid.

(Notice that few of us have any ethical problems with purging brain-dead programs like Microsoft's operating systems...)

Swift's "Modest Proposal" (and other things)

[jsm2]

Hmmmm ... I think you're blunting the point of Swift's actual satire. His essay was a commentary on the famine in Ireland, and his actual suggestion was that famine could be alleviated by producing children and selling them to be eaten. He in fact suggested that the babies should be considered a delicacy by English landlords in Ireland because they had already (through giving over tracts of farmland to beef) "eaten" the children's parents. Not actually material to your point, but I hate to see a sharp political point ground down into a blunter ethical one.

A few comments, more on-topic:

One person has had a chance to lead a full life while the other has not

I'm not sure we're actually discussing cases where "the chance to lead a full life" is the issue.

Pain tells us that we are alive

I'm reminded of Joseph Heller's views on this from Catch-22 (transcribed from memory, may be wrong)

"God made everything with a purpose", said the nurse. "Even pain has a purpose, to tell us that our bodies are being damaged".

"Bullshit", said Yossarian "If that's all it's for, why does it hurt so much? To tell us that we were being damaged, we could have a set of blue and red neon lights on our foreheads. Any half-competent jukebox designer could have put that together. Why can't God?"

"Well", replied the nurse "People would look pretty silly walking round with red and blue lights sticking out of their heads, wouldn't they"

"And I suppose they look just lovely now writhing around in agony or stuffed full of morphine", snarled Yossarian"

My personal view is that the real mistake here is to try to make general moral rules about these things. I personally feel revulsion at this sentiment; but I wouldn't necessarily presume to tell parents facing this problem what their choice should be. On the other hand, I don't want to say that "anything goes"; there should be some moral statements which are actually true. I guess that a lot would depend on the motives -- I would not like to see disabled children become the victims of infanticide because they were "inconvenient", but would mind less if euthanasia were carried out because the parents simply couldn't cope. There is a distinction there.

Of course, perhaps the answer is that there is no right thing to do when such an unfortunate child is born. Perhaps either decision is very badly morally wrong. I'm not aware of any obligation on the universe to always provide us with a "right thing to do" -- perhaps genuine "moral tragedies" can exist.

Thank heavens that the immediate question -- that of academic freedom -- is much more clear cut. I refer all present to Mill's On Liberty, which says all that needs to be said on this.

jsm

Re:What if Hawking was euthanized?

[atamar]

> If Stephen Hawking was euthanized as a child...

This thinking always strikes me as odd. How many healthy Hawkings have been lost in wars? How many healthy Hawkings never got their chance due to dysfunctional families, sickness, disinterest, poorness?

If you base your protestation on the potential of genius, or, indeed, the potential of any quality at all, you should pine for all the potential that never bloomed, be the loss by accident or by euthanasia. Extending the line of logic, we should demand ending all wars (basis: loss of potential) and redistribution of wealth to third world countries (who knows how many geniuses are lost to malnutrition, disease, insufficient education...). There is nothing wrong (or right) with the demands as such; it's just that basing them on the premise of unknown talent that just might, conceivably, exist or come to exist somewhere isn't a sound argument.

The ethics of terminating the life of a person or a newly born infant is a separate matter, well worth discussion.
Personally, I'm glad to see people think for a change. =)