| MCIL Journal | FreeOurPeople.org | ADAPT Action Report | Home |
|
|
| MCIL News Release Archive |
| National ADAPT |
| M C I L |
| Tennessee ADAPT |
| Not Dead Yet! |
| B F M S |
NEWS RELEASE
September 21, 1999
CONTACT:
Members of Not Dead Yet, a national grassroots disability rights organization, will be demonstrating in Princeton, New Jersey, on September 21, 1999, as Peter Singer begins his first day of teaching. His seminar is expected to address Singer's contention that it is sometimes morally right, and should be legal, to directly and deliberately kill disabled infants, as well as children and adults with severe cognitive disabilities.
"We're here at Princeton because Princeton has seen fit to recruit a professor who advocates openly that laws should be changed to allow some people with disabilities to be killed merely because it is convenient to their families or to others," says Diane Coleman, the group's founder and president. "In doing so, Princeton has ignored its own hate speech rules, which forbid the sorts of things he teaches about people with disabilities."
The concern about Singer goes beyond what he will teach in the classroom. "He is also acting as a bioethicist," says Stephen Drake, Not Dead Yet's research analyst. "He's urging that we make policy decisions based on his ethical theories. That means that this isn't just an academic issue - it's about real people in the real world."
Drake, whose parents were urged - and refused - to let him die after he sustained brain damage during birth, continues, "We know that today, hospitals are ignoring Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, the Baby Doe rules, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, and withholding life-saving treatment from disabled infants. ... Singer is saying that we should make these people easier to kill."
"[Singer's] talking about drawing a line based on cognitive ability. He's talking about making it policy that human beings judged to be on one side of that line be denied civil rights," said Not Dead Yet bioethics specialist Cal Montgomery, "and he treats as almost unimportant the question of who makes those judgments, and how."
For Coleman, who has been an activist in the disability rights movement since 1982, the question of who makes those judgments, and how, is central. "We've always said, 'Nothing about us, without us,' and this is certainly about us." she says. "He makes judgments about the quality of disabled lives and the capabilities of disabled people. And at the same time that he is trying to shape policy that will affect us, he is claiming that, as an ivory tower academic, he should not have to include us in the discussion. He can't have it both ways."
Local, Memphis:
Tim Wheat
(901) 726-6404 * (901) 726-6521 fax
1633 Madison Avenue - Memphis TN 38104
National:
Steve Drake
Diane Coleman
(708) 209-1500 ext. 11
7521 Madison St.
Forest Park, IL 60130
The Memphis Center for Independent Living
1633 Madison Avenue,
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 726-6404 v/tty (901) 726-6521 fax
mcil@mcil.org
MCIL is a United Way of the Mid-South member Agency
Return to the top of this page
MCIL would like feedback on the accessibility of this website. Please send your comments and concerns to webmaster@mcil.org