FROM WAPD

ISM


DISABILITY ACTIVISTS PROTEST SINGER APPOINTMENT...

Members of "Not Dead Yet", a U.S.A. grassroots disability
rights organization, will be spearheading a projected big
demonstration in Princeton, New Jersey, on September 21,
1999, as Peter Singer begins his first day of teaching.
It is expected to address Singer's contention that it is
sometimes morally right, and should be legal, to directly
and deliberately kill disabled infants, as well as children
and adults with severe cognitive disabilities.

"We're here at Princeton because Princeton has seen fit to
recruit a professor who advocates openly that laws should
be changed to allow some people with disabilities to be
killed merely because it is convenient to their families
or to others," says Diane Coleman, the group's founder and
president. "In doing so, Princeton has ignored its own hate
speech rules, which forbid the sorts of things he teaches
about people with disabilities."
But the concern about Singer goes beyond what he will teach
in the classroom. "He is also acting as a bioethicist," says
Stephen Drake, NDY's research analyst. "He's urging that we
make policy decisions based on his ethical theories. That
means that this isn't just an academic issue - it's about
real people in the real world. It's about justice."
Drake, whose parents were urged - and refused - to let him
die after he sustained brain damage during birth, continues,
"We know that today, hospitals are ignoring Section 504 of
the Rehabilitation Act, the Baby Doe rules, and the Americans
with Disabilities Act, and withholding life-saving treatment
from disabled infants. And there is a series of cases in which
people are claiming that it is acceptable to withhold food and
water from people who have acquired cognitive impairments and
where there is less and less consensus as to how disabled they
are. Singer is saying that we should make these people easier
to kill."

Singer's work is too shoddy to support the kinds of policy
decisions he urges, according to NDY bioethics specialist Cal
Montgomery. "He starts with extreme cases, and paints a picture
that tends to convince readers," she says. "But he's talking
about drawing a line based on cognitive ability. He's talking
about making it policy that human beings judged to be on one
side of that line be denied civil rights. And he treats as
almost unimportant the question of who makes those judgments,
and how." For Coleman, who has been an activist in the
disability rights movement since 1982, the question of who
makes those judgments, and how, is central. "We've always
said, 'Nothing about us, without us,'" she says. "And this
is certainly about us. He makes judgments about the quality
of disabled lives and the capabilities of disabled people.
And at the same time that he is trying to shape policy that
will affect us, he is claiming that, as an ivory tower
academic, he should not have to include us in the
discussion. He can't have it both ways."

Many disabilities associations and groups will be well
represented at the giant protest.
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