He has no way of knowing or predicting that the extinction of a life judged to adversely affect the individual, the family and society can contribute to a greater good or the possibility of a greater good. The only thing he can be sure of is that the termination of existence of a living human being is just that. It may relieve some of those adversely affected by the burden of care or suffering or cost partially and temporarily. But that is very short sighted. Suppose they lapse into paralyzing guilt and depression as a possible backlash effect of their decision. Is the situation not aggravated?

If the particular condition or disability stems from a genetic defect or predisposition, what is to guarantee that the next pregnancy will be free of the problem? And so on.

The short sighted rationale for terminating a life because he and others deem it unpleasant is not worth serious consideration.

In addition, Singer seems to accept as intuitively true that some of the undesirable circumstances are incontestably worse than any alternative and need to be eradicated.

I expect that Professor Singer enjoys thumbing his nose at all those who would reject his views and laughs at those who respect them.

One need not take the whole corpus of his work very seriously, though no doubt its symbolic impact is profoundly distasteful to some.

-- Charles Mackay, Ph.D. (posted 3/6, 1:23 p.m., E.S.T.)

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