Open Letter Against University of Minnesota's
Invitation to Peter Singer

To: Ramona Ilea, University of Minnesota
      ilea0001@umn.edu

Date: March 17, 2006

RE: Peter Singer Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 @ U of MN Campus

 

Ramona,

I want to exclaim my opposition to the University of Minnesota's promotion, acceptance, and encouragement of Peter Singer. This is the equivalent of allowing an Adolf Hitler type or the KKK's Leader Thomas Robb to have a public forum at the University of Minnesota via tax payer funded facilities and campus.

My eleven-year-old son has profound mental retardation, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy. Peter Singer openly promotes the ideology that my son has no more value or relevance to society than a turkey or a dog. In fact, he openly promotes the ideology that my son has LESS value than a turkey or a dog.

This is a disgusting and outrageous display of racism, prejudice, and open hostility to people with disabilities that attend the University of Minnesota, and the entire population of people with disabilities in the State of Minnesota.

As a certificate student at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health, a Registered Nurse, and the mother of a child with disabilities I am both disappointed and disgusted that the U of MN would tolerate such hate speech and discrimination against a population of people already marginalized by society.

If this were any other group of people who have been the victims of hate, racism, prejudice, and discrimination, this would not be tolerated. Why does the University of Minnesota promote such hate-filled, intolerant views against people with disabilities?

Sincerely,
Katheryn J. Ware RN BSN PHN

kitkat24@comcast.net
warex024@umn.edu

 


Voluntary Euthanasia: A Utilitarian Perspective Peter Singer
Bioethics Volume 17, 5-6, 2003
"The idea that it is always wrong to kill an innocent human being gains its strongest support from religious doctrines that draw a sharp distinction between human beings and other sentient beings. Without such religious ideas, it is difficult to think of any morally relevant properties that separate human beings with severe brain damage or other major intellectual disabilities from other beings at a similar mental level. For why should the fact that a being is a member of our species make it worse to kill that being than it is to kill a member of another species, if the two individuals have similar intellectual abilities, or if the non-human has superior intellectual abilities?"

Let me tell you what this means to me, the mother of a child with profound mental retardation:

It is not any more wrong to kill my son Kylen who has a major intellectual disability, than it is to kill a sentient turkey or a dog.

cc: Department of Philosophy Faculty
      Board of Regents University of Minnesota
      Minnesota Representative Joe Atkins
      Minnesota Senator James Metzen
      Star Tribune
      Pioneer Press


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