|
Whether you agree with him or not, the argument is more nuanced. I believe the relevant section is page 169 of this:
https://www.stafforini.com/docs/Singer%20-%20Practical%20eth... Some of the text is copied and pasted below, but it should be read and interpreted in context: ABORTION AND INFANTICIDE There remains one major objection to the argument I have advanced in favour of abortion. We have already seen that the
strength of the conservative position lies in the difficulty liberals
have in pointing to a morally significant line of demarcation
between an embryo and a newborn baby. The standard liberal
position needs to be able to point to some such line, because
liberals usually hold that it is permissible to kill an embryo or
fetus but not a baby. I have argued that the life of a fetus (and
even more plainly, of an embryo) is of no greater value than
the life of a nonhuman animal at a similar level of rationality,
self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel. etc., and that
since no fetus is a person no fetus has the same claim to life as
a person. Now it must be admitted that these arguments apply
to the newborn baby as much as to the fetus. A week-old baby
is not a rational and self-conscious being, and there are many
nonhuman animals whose rationality, self-consciousness,
awareness, capacity to feel. and so on, exceed that of a human
baby a week or a month old. If the fetus does not have the same
claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does
not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value to it
than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to the nonhuman
animal. |