“When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with the prospects of a happy life, the amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed,” argues Peter Singer.  What’s morally wrong with this view?

“The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second. Therefore if killing the haemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him.

The total view treats infants as replaceable, in much the same way as it treats non-self-conscious animals. Many will think that the replaceability argument cannot be applied to human infants. The direct killing of even the most hopelessly disabled infant is still officially regarded as murder, how then could the killing of infants with far less serious problems, like haemophilia, be accepted? Yet on further reflection the replaceability argument does not seem quite so bizarre. For there are disabled members of our species whom we now deal with exactly as this argument says we should (see UK abortion law)…there is only one difference, and that is the difference of timing – the timing of the discovery of the problem, and consequent killing of the disabled being.” (Practical Ethics pg 186)

Here is the essence of Peter Singer’s argument: rights to life are not absolute. The argument that killing a disabled baby and replacing it with a healthy baby is exactly the same as the argument that killing a disabled foetus and replacing it with a healthy foetus, as is legal under UK abortion law, is morally right. General happiness is increased by the replacement of an unhappy baby with a happier one.

I have three objections to this view.

1. The assumption is that we can measure future happiness and then compare the happiness of one baby over its life with that of another. This is impossible in practice (a central criticism of utilitarian ethics). A further, underlying assumption here is that disabled children are necessarily unhappy, or less happy than able-bodied ones. This is quite simply false. Nor are their families necessarily less happy to share life with them.

2. Singer is a preference utilitarian, but here he sounds more like a hedonic act utilitarian. As a preference utilitarian he should see the difference between the two cases of abortion and infanticide. A mother may prefer not to carry a foetus in her own body – that is her right as she owns her own body and has the right to choose how to use it. Once the baby is born, that right and preference ends. It now resides with the child – who is not yet able to articulate that choice. To force choice upon them and say effectively “you choose death” seems to me profoundly immoral and a denial of the very preference based system Singer advocates. I realise Singer tries to escape this problem by applying rationality as a key condition of personhood rights (though how you define rationality, and when a child gets it seems to me to be problematic). I prefer the criterion of independent life.

3. From a general utilitarian argument – for social welfare and happiness – human beings need a spread of genes in order to guarantee the strength of our genetic code. Trying to purify the gene pool by eliminating supposed unhealthy genes has the same effect as only marrying your first cousins – it makes abnormalities more common and lowers resistance to disease. This is contrary to the general welfare of humankind and should therefore be resisted on act utilitarian grounds.

As a final comment – rule utilitarian Mill would surely reject the replaceability argument, as it would, if applied in law, lead to general insecurity and unhappiness amongst all those with less-than-perfect babies, and would violate the altruistic motive (care for others) so important to Mill’s utilitarian ethics.