Better Dead than Disabled? | Commonweal Magazine
For about fifteen years now, one of the first things I do when having an argument about abortion is to ask prochoicers whether they think Peter Singer is wrong to support infanticide. If they think he is wrong, I then attempt to walk them back from their reasoning about infanticide to see how it might affect their reasoning about abortion. In public debates and private conversations, Singer and I have discussed the likely results of this strategy. He is convinced that prochoicers are more likely to become prochoice for infanticide as well as abortion than to question their views on abortion. Until recently, I’ve been convinced that prochoicers are more likely to change their minds about abortion than to become pro-infanticide. After witnessing the reaction to the Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans cases, I’m no longer so confident. Indeed, I worry that we are likely to see more aggressive public defenses of infanticide. And I also worry that, unless we can find a way to defend a non-ableist and non-ageist conception of human dignity, we simply won’t have the moral resources to resist.
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