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Singer is definitively pro-abortion, for basically the reasons I mentioned. It's not terribly nuanced, it follows pretty directly from his basic ideas. https:/

by gh02t 9y ago

Singer is definitively pro-abortion, for basically the reasons I mentioned. It's not terribly nuanced, it follows pretty directly from his basic ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Abortion.2C_euthanasia.2C_and_infanticide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Abortion.2C_eutha... I'm not super expert about it either (at best a casual armchair philosopher), but from what I know Singers philosophy isn't specifically about suffering, it's about weighing interests. He assumes that the desire to avoid pain is one of the more important interests, hence it takes priority most (but not all) of the time. It's not black and white, it's more of a calculus about weighing the different competing interests of individuals, with certain classes of interests being given more weight than others. I think Singers arguments in favor of abortion actually go farther than what OP's post implied regarding the fetus' capacity to feel pain. Singer argues that a fetus is unable to have any self-interests (including the desire to avoid pain), hence the interests of the mother should be given priority. I think this is taking it too far myself; I can agree with the delineation of the fetus' capacity to feel pain, but it is not clear to me at what point (if any) Singer feels it would be immoral to abort a fetus.

marcoperaza 9y ago
Just to clarify, Singer believes that you should be allowed to kill babies for years after birth.
- deorder 9y ago
  I discovered last year that people are actually promoting this. I've been attacked by people because I do not agree with late-term (for no medical reason) and after-birth abortion: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2012/03/after_birth_abortion_the_pro_choice_case_for_infanticide_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur... It is almost in the same line of thinking that infants are not capable of feeling pain and why some operations on them were done without anesthesia: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/17/opinion/l-why-infant-surgery-without-anesthesia-went-unchallenged-832387.html http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/17/opinion/l-why-infant-surge... I believe some operations on infants are still being done without it: http://gizmodo.com/why-are-so-many-newborns-still-being-denied-pain-relief-1755495866 http://gizmodo.com/why-are-so-many-newborns-still-being-deni... "to this day, many procedures are performed on newborns without the benefit of analgesics. That’s largely because of an enduring misconception in the medical community that newborns don’t feel pain like adults."
  - gh02t 9y ago
    Yep, there's also Antinatalism, which is the belief that having children is immoral. There are a few different strains, but greatly oversimplifying my favorite is that suffering in life outweighs pleasure, so bringing a new life into existence increases the net amount of suffering and is thus immoral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism
  - keldaris 9y ago
    > It is almost in the same line of thinking that infants are not capable of feeling pain and why some operations on them were done without anesthesia While that sentiment is certainly a part of medical history, there's a good reason why many procedures on infants are still carried out without anesthesia today. Infants are fragile and most forms of pain relief we use on adults are simply too dangerous for infants. Any anesthesiologist will weigh the benefits vs. the risks for each particular procedure and for infants that ratio is considerably different compared to adults.
    - deorder 9y ago
      Is it really that dangerous? "Key medical objections to infant anesthesia - that it was (a) unnecessary and (b) dangerous - were resolved by the brilliant research of Kanwal Anand and colleagues at Oxford from 1985 to 1987. Making precise measurements of infant reactions to surgery, they proved that the babies experienced pain, needed and tolerated anesthesia well, and had probably been dying of metabolic and endocrine shock following unanesthetized operations." Source: http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html
      - keldaris 9y ago
        I'm not a medical doctor and not necessarily current on the latest research. However, there is quite a lot of evidence that general anesthesia is fairly likely to cause actual brain damage in infants and young children [1,2] with significant consequences in later life and there are (less significant, but still non-trivial) issues with various methods of local anesthesia. As far as I know, there's a lot of unsolved issues in the field of infant anesthesiology and the general trend is to err on the side of caution. [1] http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20120820/anesthesia-may-harm-childrens-brains#1 http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20120820/anesthesia... [2] https://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm364078.htm https://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm364078.h...
- gh02t 9y ago
  Yeah that's exactly what I was getting at. I couldn't remember if he had taken it that far but I thought I recalled reading that.
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  More shocking than that you would even be allowed to die when you are ill and suffering too much. You know like we do with our pets because we love them and don't want them to suffer.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

by gh02t 9y ago

marcoperaza 9y ago

Just to clarify, Singer believes that you should be allowed to kill babies for years after birth.

deorder 9y ago
I discovered last year that people are actually promoting this. I've been attacked by people because I do not agree with late-term (for no medical reason) and after-birth abortion: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2012/03/after_birth_abortion_the_pro_choice_case_for_infanticide_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur... It is almost in the same line of thinking that infants are not capable of feeling pain and why some operations on them were done without anesthesia: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/17/opinion/l-why-infant-surgery-without-anesthesia-went-unchallenged-832387.html http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/17/opinion/l-why-infant-surge... I believe some operations on infants are still being done without it: http://gizmodo.com/why-are-so-many-newborns-still-being-denied-pain-relief-1755495866 http://gizmodo.com/why-are-so-many-newborns-still-being-deni... "to this day, many procedures are performed on newborns without the benefit of analgesics. That’s largely because of an enduring misconception in the medical community that newborns don’t feel pain like adults."
- gh02t 9y ago
  Yep, there's also Antinatalism, which is the belief that having children is immoral. There are a few different strains, but greatly oversimplifying my favorite is that suffering in life outweighs pleasure, so bringing a new life into existence increases the net amount of suffering and is thus immoral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism
- keldaris 9y ago
  > It is almost in the same line of thinking that infants are not capable of feeling pain and why some operations on them were done without anesthesia While that sentiment is certainly a part of medical history, there's a good reason why many procedures on infants are still carried out without anesthesia today. Infants are fragile and most forms of pain relief we use on adults are simply too dangerous for infants. Any anesthesiologist will weigh the benefits vs. the risks for each particular procedure and for infants that ratio is considerably different compared to adults.
  - deorder 9y ago
    Is it really that dangerous? "Key medical objections to infant anesthesia - that it was (a) unnecessary and (b) dangerous - were resolved by the brilliant research of Kanwal Anand and colleagues at Oxford from 1985 to 1987. Making precise measurements of infant reactions to surgery, they proved that the babies experienced pain, needed and tolerated anesthesia well, and had probably been dying of metabolic and endocrine shock following unanesthetized operations." Source: http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html
    - keldaris 9y ago
      I'm not a medical doctor and not necessarily current on the latest research. However, there is quite a lot of evidence that general anesthesia is fairly likely to cause actual brain damage in infants and young children [1,2] with significant consequences in later life and there are (less significant, but still non-trivial) issues with various methods of local anesthesia. As far as I know, there's a lot of unsolved issues in the field of infant anesthesiology and the general trend is to err on the side of caution. [1] http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20120820/anesthesia-may-harm-childrens-brains#1 http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20120820/anesthesia... [2] https://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm364078.htm https://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm364078.h...
gh02t 9y ago
Yeah that's exactly what I was getting at. I couldn't remember if he had taken it that far but I thought I recalled reading that.
ajmurmann 9y ago
More shocking than that you would even be allowed to die when you are ill and suffering too much. You know like we do with our pets because we love them and don't want them to suffer.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]