On Friday, I wrote about a response to the long essay by Peter Singer in which he defends rationing in health care. Eventually, he engages in the most blatant and direct assault I've ever read from him on the value of life with a physical disability. One thing in particular struck me because it sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't pin it down. Here's the quote:
If most would prefer, say, 10 years as a quadriplegic to 4 years of nondisabled life, but would choose 6 years of nondisabled life over 10 with quadriplegia, but have difficulty deciding between 5 years of nondisabled life or 10 years with quadriplegia, then they are, in effect, assessing life with quadriplegia as half as good as nondisabled life. (These are hypothetical figures, chosen to keep the math simple, and not based on any actual surveys.) If that judgment represents a rough average across the population, we might conclude that restoring to nondisabled life two people who would otherwise be quadriplegics is equivalent in value to saving the life of one person, provided the life expectancies of all involved are similar. (emphasis added.)I'm sure (tongue partway in cheek) that I found Peter Singer's inspiration for his "hypothetical figure." In 1992, Mary Johnson wrote about "Jerry Lewis, Jerry's Orphans and the Telethon."
I found the quote I was looking for in her conveniently placed sidebar - top of page on the right-hand side:
"I decided after 41 years of battling this curse that attacks children of all ages, I would put myself in that chair, that steel imprisonment that long has been deemed the dystrophic child's plight. . . . I realize my life is half, so I must learn to do things halfway. I just have to learn to try to be good at being half a person."Should Jerry Lewis sue for plagiarism? Or is this just a case of (cough) great minds thinking alike?
From "What if I had Muscular Dystrophy?" Parade magazine, Sept. 2, 1990
Enough of me, though. Some other folks in our community have been writing and they're worth reading. I'll add more links to this post if more bloggers post critiques.
In the meantime, please check out:
WHEELIE CATHOLIC: Contingent on walking?
Pizza Diavalo: Shorter Peter Singer: Being Disabled Sucks, Or, How To Wallow In Ablism
Diary of a Goldfish: Being a Wally About QALYs
Midlife and Treachery: The 1/2 Compromise and Health Care
Gary Presley: Peter Singer Applies Utilitarian Values to Your Life
Bad Cripple: Peter Singer and Health Care Reform
That's all that I could find - right now. Let me know of any more out there and I'll put up the links. --Stephen Drake
3 comments:
I read your articles in order, S.Drake. I'll go to the links in a moment. Just want to say that Ellen Goodman, on TruthDig, www.truthdig.com several weeks ago had an article on "rationing health care". Her attack was, I think, on the mythical senior citizen who is receiving too much "end of life" machine heroics vs health care for the younger. The comments had so many that were negative of her writing, it was great. Singer gets a lot of attention in the corporate media so, I'd guess that he rides the horse as long as far as he can. For many, it comes down to a perception that we are "expensive" for a society.
I'd like to see lineups of "what things cost" (as some peace websites do for war vs peace items, including health care and education): for ex. It costs more to keep a person in a prison in NYS than to send the individual to Harvard for a year. If you added up the cost to society of every need of persons with disabilities, it would be tiny in relation to both war and the bailout of banks in this past year.
I don't want to see the discussion based on money, and false premises about those. I don't want "value" attached to some life. It is so peculiar, which I have noted many times, how some people use "walking" as the basic measure of a person. For example, if an older person can't walk and needs to use a wheelchair for mobility, well, they get sent to a nursing home. (I have heard that so often.)
No one suggests people without disabilities should walk many flights of stairs (except for contests and the newly reopened Statue of Liberty) - that's why there are elevators for medium to high rise buildings. Car owners would look at you with surprise if you asked why don't they just walk several miles? It's one's starting point, I guess (smiling).
So glad Singer got caught allegedly plagiarizing - Mary Johnson is a good source for people. Now I shall start on the links. Always fun to go "there". Thanks.
Peter Singer's disgusting ableism is nauseating. Frankly, I think it's time for some more protests outside of Princeton. This man should NOT hold the kind of esteemed position that he does in academia. If he said these things about any other minority group, he'd be run out of town on a rail. It makes me want to shake him.
Oh, this is wonderful what you're doing with this.. Over at Twitter, the #TCOT group has been very gracious is carrying forward the message of keywords like utilitarian and deeper rationing of health care for our [vulnerable] populations..
This rhetoric of Singer's and others like him aren't just silly nonsense words these people are bantering around.. They really, really mean them.
Something's definitely up with it all, too.. This is a "too convenient" piece for Singer to have so prominently right now..
From having followed health care and had a serious issue with anything even so much as hinting at rationing for so long, it looks like they thought they had a lock on smokin' a globalization'esque version straight through..
Then a tiny whisper became a swell..
And now here we all are..
Hey, meant what I said over at the other blog.. In case you didn't see it:
My Hero..! :)
Now to go see what Wesley must surely be saying.. :)
Great big cyber hugs from Talking Rock.. :)
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