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I agree with another respondent. Is life only valuable when it is a biographical or rational/self-conscious life? This surely is contrary to Peter Singer's own 'green' credo (he is a past Parliamentary candidate for the Australian Greens). All life has purpose and meaning, even bacteria (without of course equating bacteria with any kind of human life) which make up so much of the functioning of our own bodies for instance. All life is interdependent, in many ways we don't comprehend how, but we know it is, and it should therefore be treasured, respected, supported and cared for in whatever state or form we find it. Disability has always been a part of the human condition and this will remain so in spite of any amount of medical/technological manipulation and advances.

This should be accepted and translated in public policies that support people in states of dependency and protect from the vulnerability that many people with disabilities in particular, but all of us at times in our lives (newborn, frail, aged, ill) face. The causes of human-created disability (education, employment, transport, physical barriers etc.) need to be addressed. We may then have a society that is more of a community of people than is the utilitarian one Singer's views lead to. It is very well to espouse that maximization of happiness for most people justifies some people being killed but it is not good enough to do this when 'happiness' is undefinable though most often equated these days with material benefits to individuals. One of the first things I had to think about in embarking on my research (Attitudes of people with disabilities towards euthanasia) was of the possible effects on my participants of even asking them certain questions, as part of careful research. I am not sure that Singer, in the name of free thought/speech, has sufficiently taken heed himself of the wider effects of expressing his views.

: -- E. Leipoldt, Ph.D. student, Edith Cowan University (posted 3/9, 10:05 a.m., E.S.T.)

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