by Peter Singer

About the author: Peter Singer teaches philosophy and ethics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. The following viewpoint is excerpted from his book Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics.

Very many severely disabled infants, especially those who are judged to have poor prospects of a life of reasonable quality, and who are unwanted by their parents, are deliberately treated in such a way that they die rapidly and without suffering. Perhaps the clearest illustration of the way in which doctors have found themselves unable to work within the framework of the traditional sanctity of life ethic [the belief that all life is sacred and should be preserved in every case] comes from the treatment of babies born with spina bifida.

Treating Spina Bifida

Spina bifida means, literally, a...