I am not an avid reader of American newspapers, but on Thanksgiving Day I came across one in our community room and decided to spend some time looking over it.
I don’t think I can be appalled by anything I read in newspapers at the present time, but one article certainly did disturb my equilibrium. It regarded a new appointment to a professorship in the famous Princeton University in New Jersey.
Princeton, founded in 1746, is the fourth oldest university in the United States. A tenured professor has been appointed recently to the chair of bioethics. Bioethics, I understand, is the science that studies medical and biological research, which would, of course, include preborn and newborn babies.
The professor is an Australian ethicist named Dr. Peter Singer and he is an internationally known leader in the “animal rights” movement who opposes eating animals and experimenting on them. In Dr. Singer’s view, species is not relevant to moral status and newborn human infants (sentient beings who – like animals – are neither rational nor conscious) should enjoy no more privileged a position than animals do!
Here is how the professor – who is considered one of the brightest ethicists on the planet and will have as his students many of the future teachers and professors of the U.S. – expresses his view on the value of human life:
1. Human babies are not born self-aware or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons.
2. A period of 28 days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to live as others.
3. It does not seem wise to add to the burden on limited resources an increasing number of disabled children.
4. Parents of kids born with Down syndrome, spina bifida and other diseases have the right to decide if the infant’s life will be so miserable or so devoid of minimal satisfaction that it would be inhumane or futile to prolong life.
According to the account given, Dr. Singer is a kindly and compassionate man. But reason and compassion detached from truth about what really happens in abortion – namely that some people decide that other people are not worthy or are entitled to be born – fast become a murderous logic. Where do you draw the line? The logic of “early” abortion slips easily into the logic of abortion in any circumstance at any time. The logic of abortion slides easily into euthanasia. If you can spare a handicapped baby a life of suffering through abortion, why wouldn’t you end the misery of a sick loved one!
In times past, Western culture would have branded Dr. Singer as a lunatic and perhaps a criminal. Now, Princeton University has given him a platform to mould the best and brightest of tomorrow’s leaders, in his own moral image.
