Posted on 08/20/2014 6:55:16 AM PDT by wagglebee
I think it is time to start calling Peter Singer ”Professor Death.”
The Princeton moral philosopher–an oxymoron in his case–is the world’s foremost proponent of infanticide. He usually uses examples of disabled babies, but the reason he believes they can be killed is that they are supposedly not “persons.” Thus, Singer has refused to state that killing a baby because she was ugly would be wrong.
Professor Death also supports euthanasia, both voluntary and non voluntary against ill human non-persons, such as Alzheimer’s patients.
He has also stated that cognitively devastated people should have been used in developing the hepatitis vaccines instead of chimpanzees. Not surprisingly, he advocates duty-to-die health care rationing based on quality of life invidious discrimination.
Professor Death has come to the defense of his colleague in nihilism, Australia’s Doctor Death, Phillip Nitschke, who favors suicide availability for troubled teenagers and the selling of suicide pills in super markets.
Nitschke has had his medical license suspended for “death coaching,” that is, giving active encouragement and how-to instructions to suicidal people. One such person was a suspected murderer, who received suicide encouragement through Nitschke’s organization, learned how to get the drugs, and did the deed.
Nitschke’s ghoulish suicide proselytizing is completely inconsistent with his role as a licensed medical doctor. But Professor Death thinks Dr. Death’s license should not have been taken because both death colleagues believe in the dangerous concept of ”rational suicide.” From The Age story:
‘‘I think suicide can be rational in the absence of terminal illness and I think I could find you dozens or hundreds of philosophers who would think that …
All bow to the philosophers!
Back to Singer
I think if you know you are going to spend the next 20 years in prison, suicide is a rational option – not for everybody, but for some people,’’ he said, referring to the case of Nigel Brayley, a Perth man who communicated with Dr Nitschke before taking his own life while he was being investigated over his wife’s death.
This is Kevorkianland: K believed that anyone who wanted to die should be able to attend a clinic for that purpose. Apparently, Singer agrees:
In response to concerns about depressed people accessing Exit International information, Professor Singer said: ‘‘I think the solution to that is to legalise voluntary euthanasia and restrict it to medical practitioners, and then Philip won’t have to do this … I think he feels he is a crusader against a law that unnecessarily restricts people’s right to die.”
Who cares what he “feels?” The question is whether his actions are consistent with possessing a medical license under Australian law.
But note, Singer believes that a man suspected of murder should be able to go to a doctor to be killed to avoid prison.
We don’t know why Nitschke was suspended. But he has sold suicide bags to people he knew to be self-destructive, which was outlawed in response to my advocacy against N in Australia in 2001.
He told people how to access poison for suicide. He lied in the media about a woman who announced she was going to commit suicide under his tutelage, claiming she had terminal cancer, when she didn’t. He has encouraged and furthered the suicides of who knows how many people over the years.
Singer might think that is fine. He may think doctors should be allowed to kill. But at least as things are now, when Nitschke committed his ghoulish suicide promotion, it sure isn’t consistent with the practice of ethical medicine.
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.
You're missing a very important point. The existence of G-d has nothing to do with humans being "special" or "just other animals." If it weren't for G-d, there would be no animals of any kind! (Or plants. Or minerals. Or protists. Or . . . well, you get the idea.).
It's scary that some people think that the status of humanity is the one and only argument for G-d.
What you are describing is libertarianism, genuine conservatives DO have God and morality as their core principle.
Why not let him choose to end it? It would save society some money and a lot of misery.
I want it difficult for the state to take a life. When it becomes to easy to take a life taking lives happen too often.
I used to hunt a lot. Taking a life there teaches you to respect ALL life. Taking a life is a very traumatic and personal. We have sanitized death in our culture and made it clean and easy.
I agree and you can see it in the absurd devotion that so many have to Ayn Rand, personal selfishness is their sole guiding principle.
Unfortunately, that doesn't always come across. Go to just about any conservative web site or read just about any conservative publication and the spotlight will be on economics and the size of government.
And did you see all those posts agreeing with Singer on this thread?
The difference here would be that the soon-to-be-deceased is volunteering for execution, rather than it being imposed on him.
This guy has been awarded the Order of Australia. As an Australian I suppose I could be eligible for that honour but I would refuse it outright if I was ever awarded it. Ditto for numerous other awards like the Nobel Peace Prize etc.
I know and this is as disturbing to me as I assume it is to you.
And did you see all those posts agreeing with Singer on this thread?
Yep. I've posted hundreds of threads on euthanasia and I invariably see people who claim to be conservative condoning immorality as a way to save money.
Same here.. save a hell of a lot of money.
Incidentally, I think that the whole prison system could be easily overhauled in other ways. What's the point of locking people away for minor crimes (petty theft, etc) at taxpayer expense, only to transform them from petty criminals to hardened criminals with no possibility of being productive members of society? Wouldn't public flogging (followed by a clean record) be a more effective deterrent to minor crimes?
For violent felonies, the euthanasia option sounds reasonable for me when the death penalty isn't mandated.
No, and what's even more puzzling is the fact that his grandparents were Jews who died in the Holocaust.
I'm a libertarian on most issues (but can't abide the Libertarian Party for their views on immigration), and I disagree with Singer on almost everything, except on euthanasia. Whose life is it anyone, yours or the government's? What business does the government have telling people they have to go on living a life that they consider worthless because they're incapacitated (or, in the case of this article, permanently incarcerated)?
I think I would agree with Singer on this one, but for completely different reasons than he no doubt uses to rationalize this.
His rationalization stems from the fact that he does not respect any human life; therefore, if a criminal wants to die, he is perfectly okay with allowing the criminal to suicide.
As far as I can tell, most people who are against the death penalty do not think that taking a human life is a very big deal, thus they do not advocate the ultimate punishment for the act.
I think that taking a human life is a horrendous act, and I do not think that those who commit such acts have any claim to a right to life. If they want to kill themselves, fine, it takes the burden off of those who must carry out the death penalty and saves the cost of endless appeals. And if they are sentenced to life in prison, not the death penalty, and want to suicide—well, that is just a technicality.
When will this moral-free ghoul, singer, murder him self?
Do you also agree with the libertarians on abortion, homosexuality and drugs?
Whose life is it anyone, yours or the government's?
Life is a God-given unalienable right, but it is not a possession that we can give away.
What business does the government have telling people they have to go on living a life that they consider worthless because they're incapacitated (or, in the case of this article, permanently incarcerated)?
The right to life DOES NOT include the right to die. We don't have a claim on death, death has a claim on us.
And try not to forget that the euthanasia movement is about far more than voluntary death, they have no qualms about deciding who should and shouldn't live.
Is the difference between suicide and murder really that difficult to understand? It's like the difference between somebody who never leaves his house because he's a recluse vs. somebody put under house arrest. There's a big difference.
I think that Roe v. Wade should be overturned as unconstitutional and the legality of abortion left up to the states, as the 10th amendment to the Constitution requires.
I oppose the absurd concept of homosexual "marriage" and oppose any special protected victim class status for homosexuals (as I oppose them for racial "minorities").
As for drugs, the government had the sense to give up on Prohibition in 1933, recognizing that a ban on alcohol only made gangsters rich and our streets more violent, and that legalizing alcohol was a lesser evil than declaring war on it. Now, please explain why you war on drug advocates defend certain classes of drugs and drug users (alcohol and nicotine) while criminalizing others. Any argument you make about the social or medical ill effects of illicit drugs apply equally well to alcohol, so in the name of consistency, you should either advocate a return to prohibition or acknowledge the hypocrisy of the war on (certain) drugs.
In other words, you are pro-choice-by-state.
Are you aware of what happened the last time America experimented with letting each state decide who was and who wasn't a person?
Are you aware that your position is the libertarian version of "I'm personally opposed, but..."? Your position will insure that abortion continues just as it has for the past four decades?
Libertarians CLAIM to value personal rights, why do they support the state denying constitutional rights to the unborn?
I oppose the absurd concept of homosexual "marriage" and oppose any special protected victim class status for homosexuals (as I oppose them for racial "minorities").
Great, but believe that two people of the same gender should be allowed to marry each other? You rejected a concept, what do you think the LAW should be?
As for drugs, the government had the sense to give up on Prohibition in 1933, recognizing that a ban on alcohol only made gangsters rich and our streets more violent, and that legalizing alcohol was a lesser evil than declaring war on it. Now, please explain why you war on drug advocates defend certain classes of drugs and drug users (alcohol and nicotine) while criminalizing others. Any argument you make about the social or medical ill effects of illicit drugs apply equally well to alcohol, so in the name of consistency, you should either advocate a return to prohibition or acknowledge the hypocrisy of the war on (certain) drugs.
So, you think that making cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine even more available will make society "safer"?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.