Peter Singer, a researcher at Princeton University, has come under criticism for promoting euthanasia for adults and even sick newborns while touring the US, UK and Australia to promote his new book.
The 76-year-old Singer, one of the world’s foremost living philosophers and advocate of animal rights, recently stirred outrage with his vocal support for medically-assisted killings, including for infants born with terminal illnesses.
Critics called Singer’s comments “dangerous eugenics” and accused the Australian of undermining the terminally ill and disabled by implying they would be better off dead.
The controversy arises as Canada’s liberal state assisted suicide system now kills 10,000 people a year and more states are considering expanding access to suicide drugs.
“Singer has a eugenic philosophy and his writing is dangerous,” Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, a campaign group, told .
Princeton University scientist Peter Singer, the father of the modern animal rights movement, now says euthanasia should be available to sick newborns
Disability rights activists say Singer’s support for assisted suicide devalues her life
“He justifies that certain lives are not worth living, and his philosophy undermines the concept of human equality by justifying the killing of people who lack indefinite levels of cognitive ability.”
Schadenberg asked people to boycott the book tour.
Matt Vallière, director of the Patients Rights Action Fund, has criticized Singer’s “eugenic, utilitarian worldview” for implying that “some lives are not worth living, especially those with significant disabilities.”
This “creates a caste of disposable people,” he told .
Matt Vallière says Singer’s ideas create ‘caste of disposable people’
Singer is in the midst of a speaking tour of the US, UK and Australia promoting his new book Animal Liberation Now – a re-imagining of his 1975 classic that inspired generations of people to become vegan.
Speaking to Vox, Singer addressed the expansion of factory farming, the growing popularity of animal welfare and plant-based diets, and his belief that humans are not superior to other species.
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He also reiterated the controversial view that terminally ill people, people with limited “cognitive abilities” or a “severe, intractable intellectual disability” should be allowed to end their lives with medical help.
Even more controversial is the bioethicist’s statement that parents of a newborn with a “very severe disability” should be able to ask doctors to give the child a lethal injection.
“Parents should still be able to say, ‘We think it’s better if the child doesn’t live,’ and doctors should be able to make that happen by giving the child medication to keep the child alive without it.” Leiden dies.” said singer.
His comments sparked outrage from human rights activists, who say legalizing euthanasia devalues the lives of disabled people and prompts doctors to suggest the procedure to those who might not otherwise have considered it.
Even more emotional is the call for lethal injections for sick newborns.
Social media users branded the influential philosopher a “radical eugenicist” and an “idiot”. The New York-based campaign group Jewish Life League called Singer a “bad man”.
Meghan Schrader, 40, an autistic woman and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, compared Singer’s “euthanasia program” to state-sanctioned killings of disabled people in Nazi Germany.
Singer, 76, says parents should be able to ask doctors to give lethal injections to sick infants
The Australian bioethicist teaches at Princeton University’s University Center for Human Values
Schadenberg said promoting euthanasia for newborns is “dangerous” as Canadian officials consider whether to expand access to so-called euthanasia to the mentally ill and children.
Euthanasia is legal in seven countries – Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain – as well as several states in Australia. It is only available to children in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition director Alex Schadenberg calls Singer’s ideas ‘dangerous’
Other jurisdictions, including a growing number of US states, allow physician-assisted suicide—where patients ingest the drug themselves, usually by crushing and drinking a lethal dose of pills prescribed by a doctor.
In Canada, both options are referred to as MAiD, although more than 99.9 percent of these procedures are performed by a doctor. There were more than 10,000 such deaths in 2021, an increase of about a third from the previous year.
Canada’s journey to legalizing euthanasia began in 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled that outlawing assisted suicide robs people of their dignity and autonomy. It gave national leaders a year to draft legislation.
The resulting 2016 law legalized both euthanasia and assisted suicide for people over the age of 18 provided they met certain conditions: They had to have a serious, advanced medical condition, illness or disability that was causing distress and was at risk of death.
The law was later amended to allow people who are not terminally ill to choose death, greatly expanding the number of those eligible.
Critics say the change removed an important safeguard to protect people who may have decades to live.
Today, any adult with a serious illness or disability can seek help with dying.