Lessons from Little Wang Yu
In a TED Talk Peter Singer gave, he told the story of 2-year-old Wang Yu, a little girl in China who was killed after being struck by a van. He shared horrifying details, namely that the driver did not get out of the vehicle and that various passersby disregarded the child’s plight. During the cross examination portion of our debate, I asked Peter if Wang Yu had been a little younger, namely 6 months old (the age, according to him, when an infant wouldn’t have moral standing) if it would have been immoral to kill her then. His response was that yes, it would be, because her mother wanted her.
His reply is troubling because it does not place the value of Wang Yu in Wang Yu herself. Instead, it places her worth on the feelings and interests of others. That creates a problem; after all, what if her mother didn’t want her? Would that make killing her moral?
In fact, I asked him to imagine the mother wasn’t alive and the father had wanted a male child, not a female one. Would it have been immoral for her to be struck dead if those were the circumstances? And all he could say was that he thought disregarding someone because of their sex was wrong. It is. I agree, but I would add this: So is disregarding someone because of their level of development—which is what he does by denying the pre-born, and some born, their right to life if they aren’t currently manifesting human skill to the level he’s decided is satisfactory. You cannot control your sex and you cannot control your level of development (in other words, your age).
Age Discrimination
On several occasions I suggested that Peter’s view makes him guilty of age discrimination, because the only reason the pre-born and newborns are not manifesting desires, thoughts, etc., like us, is that they haven’t lived long enough to adequately develop the physical structures necessary for such intellectual development. Peter said that my charge was false because if someone was born and allowed to grow up to age 50 but was extremely disabled so that their capabilities were those of, say, a pre-born child, that he would be okay with that individual’s life being ended. So he said it’s therefore not about age but is instead about having certain capacities and qualities. While I realize that, on the surface, it doesn’t appear he is picking on the pre-born because of their age, a closer look reveals that he is.
If we ask why the pre-born do not manifest desires, thoughts, pain, etc. (at least early in pregnancy) it is not due to a developmental disability but rather simply because they are too young. The criteria he has selected is, in their case, qualities tied into how old they are; so, at least for the group of pre-born humans and infants, it is a type of age discrimination. Sure, his criteria also includes some older humans, but when it applies to younger humans it’s because of their age.
By way of analogy, imagine if someone said this: “You are a person if you don’t have a uterus.” Men do not have a uterus and generally women do, so one could say that such a definition of personhood is sex-discrimination. Imagine if someone responded, “Actually, sometimes there are women who don’t have a uterus, so while that definition includes all men, it includes some women so it’s not sex-discrimination.” Although a few women would be protected if they lack a uterus, the reality is most women, by virtue of their femininity, do have a uterus and would therefore be excluded. In those cases, the criteria is tied into a female feature, and one could fairly label that sex-discrimination.
Wrapping it all Up
In short, Peter didn’t deny my claims of the humanity of the pre-born; instead, he questioned the foundational standard of all civil societies and the United Nations and rejected the assumptions I laid out at the beginning: He rejected the idea that all humans are equal and that all innocent humans have a right to life, and that parents ought never to kill their children. As I mentioned at the beginning when quoting his 1972 essay, a position like his, to use his word, should be disregarded as “eccentric.” The tragedy, however, is that someone who holds such eccentric views is an individual of great prominence and influence. I can only hope the analysis provided in this series sheds light on how, even though in many ways Peter is a kindly man who I think cares deeply for suffering souls, when it comes to abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and his view on my two basic assumptions, he is off the mark.