Bioethicist's Appearance Criticized

By HOLLY RAMER
.c The Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - When Carol Nadeau was born with a rare bone disease, her
parents were horrified by suggestions they put her in an institution. ``She's
coming home with us,'' they informed the doctors.

Fifty-two years later, Nadeau is equally horrified by a bioethicist who
thinks parents should be able to euthanize severely disabled infants - but
she wants people to be able to hear him anyway.

``I feel his philosophy is totally flawed, but I'd like people with
disabilities and the general public to take a look at this person's views,
and, at the same time, look at their own views,'' said Nadeau.

Princeton University's Peter Singer, whose views have enraged many, is one of
the panelists invited to attend a conference Friday organized by the
Governor's Commission on Disability, where Nadeau works.

Singer first detailed his views on euthanasia in his 1979 book, ``Practical
Ethics.'' He wrote that children less than a month old have no human
consciousness and that parents should be allowed to kill a severely disabled
infant to end its suffering and to increase the family's happiness.

``Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person.
Sometimes it is not wrong at all,'' he wrote.

His views bother disability groups like Not Dead Yet, which plans to protest
the conference along with New Hampshire Right to Life, an anti-abortion
group.

``If the Ku Klux Klan's grand dragon was chosen to speak to the NAACP, people
would find that outrageous,'' said Tom Cagle of Not Dead Yet.

Singer, a tenured professor at Princeton's Center for Human Values since
1999, said he hopes his appearance will stimulate needed public discussion.

``If you want to have a conference where people are preaching to the
converted and slapping each other on the back, then you needn't invite me,''
he said Tuesday. ``But if you want to have a conference that challenges how
you think and your assumptions, I'm the type of person who ought to be
invited.''

Cagle fears Singer will later use the conference as evidence that his ideas
are being embraced by the disabled community, regardless of the reaction he
gets.

``There could be a room full of people throwing tomatoes at him, and I
promise you, 10 years from now he's still going to be talking about the
reasonable people with disabilities in New Hampshire who approved of him,''
he said.

Singer said doctors are already quietly withholding treatment to end the
lives of infants with severe disabilities.

``Life-and-death decisions are made for infants in hospitals everywhere,
including in this country,'' he said. ``They ought to be made openly, and we
ought to consider the basis on which they're made and who should make them.''

Singer agreed to give up his $2,000 speaker's fee after the Executive
Council, an elected body that reviews state contracts, barred a state
payment.

Commission Director Michael Jenkins said the conference will be a good
opportunity for the other speakers, many of whom have disabilities, to
confront Singer.

``In a public forum, through spirited debate, we can bring these moral and
ethical issues to the fore,'' he said. ``This is a conference about the value
of life, not about Peter Singer.''

On the Net:

Not Dead Yet: http://www.notdeadyet.org

New Hampshire's Commission on Disability:
http://webster.state.nh.us/disability

Princeton's Center for Human Values: http://www.princeton.edu/(tilde)uchv

AP-NY-10-04-01 0639EDT

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.