One of the issues raised by the Terri Schiavo case is whether certain lives are not worth living. Prof. Peter Singer, eugenicist from Princeton, would mercy-kill hundreds of thousands for various and sundry reasons related to low quality of life and cost to society of keeping certain people alive. This type of collectivist thought process denigrates the individual value of life -- an interpretation little different from totalitarian regimes that were more than happy to eradicate one in favor of the whole.
Harriet McBryde Johnson, a woman who was supposed to be dead more than two decades ago thanks to her muscular dystrophy but who has instead become a lawyer and national advocate for disabled rights, obviously disagrees. Her encounter with Singer at Princeton, as initially published in the NYT Magazine, is described in the link in the title to this post.
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