DebateLabKIT/deepa2-corpus · Datasets at Hugging Face

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to believe that I questioned their right to life. I sent a brief reply
in which I pointed out that I was advocating euthanasia not for
anyone like themselves, but for severely disabled newborn infants,
and that it was crucial to my defense of euthanasia that
these infants would never have been capable of grasping that
they are living beings with a past and a future. Hence my views
cannot be a threat to anyone who is capable of wanting to go
on living, or even of understanding that his or her life might
be threatened. After a long delay, I received a letter from Der
Spiegel telling me that, for reasons of space, they had been unable
to publish my reply. Shortly afterward, however, Der Spiegel
found space for a further highly critical account of my position
on euthanasia, together with an interview, spread over four
pages, with one of my leading opponents - and again, the same
photograph of the Nazi transport vehicles. 13
If Lebenshilfe had thought that they could pacify their critics
by withdrawing my invitation to speak at Marburg, they had
underestimated the storm that had broken loose. The protesters
continued their opposition to what they were now calling the
'Euthanasia Congress'. Shortly before the symposium was due
to open, Lebenshilfe and the Bishop Bekkers Institute canceled
the entire event. Soon after the Faculty of Special Education at
12 Franz Christoph, '(K)ein Diskurs iiber "lebensunwertes Leben" " Der Spie·
gel, No. 23/1989 (June 5, 1989).
13 'Bizarre Verquickung' and 'Wenn Mitleid tOdlich wird', Der Spiegel, No. 341
1989 (August 21, 1989), pp. 171-6.
345
Appendix
the University of Dortmund decided not to proceed with my
scheduled lecture there.
This was not quite the end of my experiences in Germany that
summer. Dr. Georg Meggle, professor of philosophy at the University
of Saarbriicken, invited me to lecture at his university
in order to show that it was possible to discuss the ethics of
euthanasia rationally in Germany. I hoped to use this opportunity
to say that, while I understood and strongly supported
every effort to prevent the resurgence of Nazi ideas, my own
views about euthanasia had nothing whatsoever to do with
what the Nazis did. In contrast to the Nazi ideology that the
state should decide who was worthy of life, my view was designed
to reduce the power of the state and allow parents to
make crucial life and death decisions, both for themselves and,
in consultation with their doctors, for their newborn infants.
Those who argued that it is always wrong to decide that a
human life is not worth living would, to be consistent, have to
say that we should use all the techniques of modern medical
care in order to extend to the greatest possible extent the life
of every infant, no matter how hopeless the infant's prospects
might be and no matter how painful his or her existence. This
was surely too cruel for any humane person to support.
Making this obvious point proved more difficult than I had
expected. When I rose to speak in Saarbriicken I was greeted
by a chorus of whistles and shouts from a minority of the audience
determined to prevent me from speaking. Professor Meggle
offered the protesters the opportunity to state why they
thought I should not speak. This showed how completely they
had misunderstood my position. Many obviously believed that
I was politically on the far right. Another suggested that I lacked
the experience with Nazism that Germans had had; he and
others in the audience were taken aback when I told them that
I was the child of Austrian-Jewish refugees, and that three of
my grandparents had died in Nazi concentration camps. Some
346
Appendix
seemed to think that I was opposed to all measures that would
advance the position of the disabled in society, whereas in fact,
while I hold that some lives are so severely blighted from the
beginning that they are better not continued, I also believe that
once a life has been allowed to develop, then in every case
everything should be done to make that life as satisfying and
rich as possible. This should include the best possible education,
adjusted to the needs of the child, to bring out to the maximum
the particular abilities of the disabled person.
Another chance comment revealed a still deeper ignorance
about my position. One protester quoted from a passage in
which I compare the capacities of intellectually disabled humans
and nonhuman animals. The way in which he left the quotation
hanging, as if it were in itself enough to condemn me, made
me realize that he thought that I was urging that we should
treat disabled humans in the way we now treat nonhuman
animals. He had no idea that my views about how we should
treat animals are utterly different from those conventionally
accepted in Western society. When I replied that, for me, to
compare a human being to a nonhuman animal was not to say
that the human being should be treated with less consideration,
but that the animal should be treated with more, this person
asked why I did not use my talents to write about the morality
of our treatment of animals, rather than about euthanasia. Naturally
I replied that I had done that, and that it was, indeed,
precisely for my views about the suffering of animals raised on
commercial farms, and used in medical and psychological research,
and the need for animal liberation that I was best known
in English-speaking countries; but I could see that a large part
of the audience simply did not believe that I could be known
anywhere as anything other than an advocate of euthanasia. 14
14 My Animal Liberation (Random House, 1975; second revised edition, New
York ReviewlRandom House, 1990) had been published in Germany under
the title Befreiung der Tiere (Munich: F. Hinhammer, 1982) but it is not
widely known. Nevenheless, Practical Ethics contains two chapters sum-
347

to believe that I questioned their right to life. I sent a brief reply

in which I pointed out that I was advocating euthanasia not for

anyone like themselves, but for severely disabled newborn infants,

and that it was crucial to my defense of euthanasia that

these infants would never have been capable of grasping that

they are living beings with a past and a future. Hence my views

cannot be a threat to anyone who is capable of wanting to go

on living, or even of understanding that his or her life might

be threatened. After a long delay, I received a letter from Der

Spiegel telling me that, for reasons of space, they had been unable

to publish my reply. Shortly afterward, however, Der Spiegel

found space for a further highly critical account of my position

on euthanasia, together with an interview, spread over four

pages, with one of my leading opponents - and again, the same

photograph of the Nazi transport vehicles. 13

If Lebenshilfe had thought that they could pacify their critics

by withdrawing my invitation to speak at Marburg, they had

underestimated the storm that had broken loose. The protesters

continued their opposition to what they were now calling the

'Euthanasia Congress'. Shortly before the symposium was due

to open, Lebenshilfe and the Bishop Bekkers Institute canceled

the entire event. Soon after the Faculty of Special Education at

12 Franz Christoph, '(K)ein Diskurs iiber "lebensunwertes Leben" " Der Spie·

gel, No. 23/1989 (June 5, 1989).

13 'Bizarre Verquickung' and 'Wenn Mitleid tOdlich wird', Der Spiegel, No. 341

1989 (August 21, 1989), pp. 171-6.

345

Appendix

the University of Dortmund decided not to proceed with my

scheduled lecture there.

This was not quite the end of my experiences in Germany that

summer. Dr. Georg Meggle, professor of philosophy at the University

of Saarbriicken, invited me to lecture at his university

in order to show that it was possible to discuss the ethics of

euthanasia rationally in Germany. I hoped to use this opportunity

to say that, while I understood and strongly supported

every effort to prevent the resurgence of Nazi ideas, my own

views about euthanasia had nothing whatsoever to do with

what the Nazis did. In contrast to the Nazi ideology that the

state should decide who was worthy of life, my view was designed

to reduce the power of the state and allow parents to

make crucial life and death decisions, both for themselves and,

in consultation with their doctors, for their newborn infants.

Those who argued that it is always wrong to decide that a

human life is not worth living would, to be consistent, have to

say that we should use all the techniques of modern medical

care in order to extend to the greatest possible extent the life

of every infant, no matter how hopeless the infant's prospects

might be and no matter how painful his or her existence. This

was surely too cruel for any humane person to support.

Making this obvious point proved more difficult than I had

expected. When I rose to speak in Saarbriicken I was greeted

by a chorus of whistles and shouts from a minority of the audience

determined to prevent me from speaking. Professor Meggle

offered the protesters the opportunity to state why they

thought I should not speak. This showed how completely they

had misunderstood my position. Many obviously believed that

I was politically on the far right. Another suggested that I lacked

the experience with Nazism that Germans had had; he and

others in the audience were taken aback when I told them that

I was the child of Austrian-Jewish refugees, and that three of

my grandparents had died in Nazi concentration camps. Some

346

Appendix

seemed to think that I was opposed to all measures that would

advance the position of the disabled in society, whereas in fact,

while I hold that some lives are so severely blighted from the

beginning that they are better not continued, I also believe that

once a life has been allowed to develop, then in every case

everything should be done to make that life as satisfying and

rich as possible. This should include the best possible education,

adjusted to the needs of the child, to bring out to the maximum

the particular abilities of the disabled person.

Another chance comment revealed a still deeper ignorance

about my position. One protester quoted from a passage in

which I compare the capacities of intellectually disabled humans

and nonhuman animals. The way in which he left the quotation

hanging, as if it were in itself enough to condemn me, made

me realize that he thought that I was urging that we should

treat disabled humans in the way we now treat nonhuman

animals. He had no idea that my views about how we should

treat animals are utterly different from those conventionally

accepted in Western society. When I replied that, for me, to

compare a human being to a nonhuman animal was not to say

that the human being should be treated with less consideration,

but that the animal should be treated with more, this person

asked why I did not use my talents to write about the morality

of our treatment of animals, rather than about euthanasia. Naturally

I replied that I had done that, and that it was, indeed,

precisely for my views about the suffering of animals raised on

commercial farms, and used in medical and psychological research,

and the need for animal liberation that I was best known

in English-speaking countries; but I could see that a large part

of the audience simply did not believe that I could be known

anywhere as anything other than an advocate of euthanasia. 14

14 My Animal Liberation (Random House, 1975; second revised edition, New

York ReviewlRandom House, 1990) had been published in Germany under

the title Befreiung der Tiere (Munich: F. Hinhammer, 1982) but it is not

widely known. Nevenheless, Practical Ethics contains two chapters sum-

347