Philosopher Peter Singer, who argues in favor of killing disabled babies, wrote about a poll about disabled children:
“In a 1983 Gallup poll, Americans were asked what they would do if they had a badly deformed baby in need of treatment. 43% said that they would ask the doctor not to keep the baby alive, and 40% said they would want the baby kept alive.”
Peter Singer Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994) 119 – 120
This quote reveals the terrible ableism that was present in our society, with more parents wanting a “deformed” baby to die than to live. I’m not aware of any more recent surveys, so I don’t know if things have improved since then, but with the high rate of disabled babies aborted after fetal screenings show disabilities, I suspect that they haven’t.
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