Editing Peter Singer (section)

==== Euthanasia and infanticide ====
[[File:Peter Singer.jpg|thumb|Singer lecturing at [[Oxford University]] in 2007]]
Singer has argued that the right to life is essentially tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Johnson |first=Harriet McBryde |date=February 16, 2003 |title=Unspeakable Conversations |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/unspeakable-conversations.html}}</ref> In ''Practical Ethics'', Singer argues in favour of [[abortion rights]] on the grounds that fetuses are neither rational nor self-aware, and can therefore hold no preferences. As a result, he argues that the preference of a mother to have an [[abortion]] automatically takes precedence. In sum, Singer argues that a fetus lacks [[personhood]]. Similar to his argument for abortion rights, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"<ref>[http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1993----.htm Taking Life: Humans] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170205000916/http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1993----.htm |date=5 February 2017}}, Excerpted from Practical Ethics, 2nd edition, 1993</ref>—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living".<ref>{{cite web |last=Singer |first=Peter |url=https://petersinger.info/faq/ |title=Peter Singer FAQ |access-date=28 October 2018 |archive-date=22 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230622185445/https://petersinger.info/faq/ |url-status=dead}}</ref> Singer has clarified that his "view of when life begins isn't very different from that of opponents of abortion." He deems it not "unreasonable to hold that an individual human life begins at conception. If it doesn't, then it begins about 14 days later, when it is no longer possible for the embryo to divide into twins or other multiples." Singer disagrees with abortion rights opponents in that he does not "think that the fact that an embryo is a living human being is sufficient to show that it is wrong to kill it." Singer wishes "to see American jurisprudence, and the national abortion debate, take up the question of which capacities a human being needs to have in order for it to be wrong to kill it" as well as "when, in the development of the early human being, these capacities are present."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sanfranciscoreviewofbooks.com/2017/09/interview-when-does-human-life-begin.html |title=When does human life begin -- and what does this really mean? Peter Singer explains. |last=Cotto |first=Joseph Ford |website=[[San Francisco Review of Books]] |date=27 September 2017 |access-date=28 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210117062913/http://www.sanfranciscoreviewofbooks.com/2017/09/interview-when-does-human-life-begin.html |archive-date=17 January 2021}}</ref>

Singer classifies [[euthanasia]] as [[voluntary euthanasia|voluntary]], [[involuntary euthanasia|involuntary]], or [[non-voluntary euthanasia|non-voluntary]]. Voluntary euthanasia is that to which the subject consents. He argues in favour of voluntary euthanasia and some forms of non-voluntary euthanasia, including infanticide in certain instances, but opposes involuntary euthanasia. Bioethicists associated with the [[disability rights]] and [[disability studies]] communities have argued that his epistemology is based on [[ableist]] conceptions of disability.<ref>{{cite book |title=Writings on an Ethical Life |first=Peter |last=Singer |chapter=An Interview |year=2001 |pages=319–329 |publisher=Fourth Estate |isbn=978-1-84115-550-0}}</ref> Singer's positions have also been criticised by some advocates for disability rights and [[right-to-life]] supporters, concerned with what they see as his attacks upon [[human dignity]]. Religious critics have argued that Singer's ethics ignores and undermines the traditional notion of the [[sanctity of life]]. Singer agrees and believes the notion of the sanctity of life ought to be discarded as outdated, unscientific, and irrelevant to understanding problems in contemporary bioethics.<ref>Singer, Peter ''Rithinking Life and Death: The Collapse of our Traditional Ethics'', Text Publishing, 1994.</ref> Disability rights activists have held many protests against Singer at Princeton University and at his lectures over the years. Singer has replied that many people judge him based on secondhand summaries and short quotations taken out of context, not on his books or articles, and that his aim is to elevate the status of animals, not to lower that of humans.{{sfnp|Singer|1993|pp=77–78|ps=. "[T]he aim of my argument is to elevate the status of animals rather than to lower the status of any humans"}}

American publisher [[Steve Forbes]] ceased his donations to [[Princeton University]] in 1999 because of Singer's appointment to a prestigious professorship.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.euthanasia.com/forb.html |title=Steve Forbes Declines Princeton Financial Backing Due to Singer Hiring |publisher=Euthanasia.com |date=21 September 1999 |access-date=28 October 2018 |archive-date=11 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220211071438/http://www.euthanasia.com/forb.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Nazi-hunter [[Simon Wiesenthal]] wrote to organisers of a Swedish book fair to which Singer was invited that "[a] professor of morals ... who justifies the right to kill handicapped newborns ... is in my opinion unacceptable for representation at your level."<ref>{{cite web |first=Don |last=Felder |url=http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/feder102898.asp |title=Professor Death will fit right in at Princeton |publisher=[[Jewish World Review]] |date=28 October 1998 |access-date=28 October 2018 |archive-date=20 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230620230732/http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/feder102898.asp |url-status=live}}</ref> Conservative psychiatrist [[Theodore Dalrymple]] wrote in 2010 that Singerian moral universalism is "preposterous—psychologically, theoretically, and practically".<ref>{{cite book |last=Dalrymple |first=Theodore |title=Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality |publisher=Gibson Square Books Ltd |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-906142-61-2 |page=226 |title-link=Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality}}</ref> In 2002, disability rights activist [[Harriet McBryde Johnson]] debated Singer, challenging his belief that it is morally permissible to euthanise newborn children with severe disabilities. "Unspeakable Conversations", Johnson's account of her encounters with Singer and the pro-euthanasia movement, was published in the ''New York Times Magazine'' in 2003.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/unspeakable-conversations.html |first=Harriet |last=McBryde Johnson |title=Unspeakable Conversations |magazine=The New York Times Magazine |date=16 February 2003 |access-date=28 October 2018 |archive-date=13 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230813152909/https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/unspeakable-conversations.html |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2015, Singer debated Archbishop [[Anthony Fisher]] on the legalisation of euthanasia at [[Sydney Town Hall]].<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/euthanasia-debate-archbishop-anthony-fisher-and-ethicist-peter-singer-to-debate-euthanasia-20150807-giu6hk.html |first=Amy |last=Corderoy |title=Euthanasia debate: Archbishop Anthony Fisher and ethicist Peter Singer to debate euthanasia |magazine=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=8 August 2015 |access-date=6 October 2021 |archive-date=22 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230622234740/https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/euthanasia-debate-archbishop-anthony-fisher-and-ethicist-peter-singer-to-debate-euthanasia-20150807-giu6hk.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Singer rejected arguments that legalising euthanasia would result in a slippery slope where the practice might become widespread as a means to remove undesirable people for financial or other motives.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://theconversation.com/singer-and-fisher-preach-to-their-flocks-in-euthanasia-debate-45880 |first=Benjamin |last=Jones |title=Singer and Fisher preach to their flocks in euthanasia debate |magazine=The Conversation |date=14 August 2015 |access-date=6 October 2021 |archive-date=22 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230622234740/https://theconversation.com/singer-and-fisher-preach-to-their-flocks-in-euthanasia-debate-45880 |url-status=live}}</ref> Singer has experienced the complexities of some of these questions in his own life. His mother had [[Alzheimer's disease]]. He said, "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult."<ref name="Specter-1999">{{cite magazine |last=Specter |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Specter |date=6 September 1999 |title=The Dangerous Philosopher |url=https://www.michaelspecter.com/wp-content/uploads/philosopher.pdf |access-date=19 July 2023 |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |archive-date=28 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211028200548/http://www.michaelspecter.com/wp-content/uploads/philosopher.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> In an interview with [[Ronald Bailey]], published in December 2000, he explained that his sister shares the responsibility of making decisions about his mother. He said that, if he were solely responsible, his mother might not continue to live.<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Ronald |last=Bailey |url=https://reason.com/archives/2000/12/01/the-pursuit-of-happiness-peter |title=The Pursuit of Happiness, Peter Singer interviewed by Ronald Bailey |date=December 2000 |magazine=[[Reason (magazine)|Reason]] |access-date=28 October 2018 |archive-date=11 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190111062525/http://reason.com/archives/2000/12/01/the-pursuit-of-happiness-peter |url-status=live}}</ref>