Peter Singer Quotes

There are some circumstances, for example, where the newborn baby is severely disabled and where the parents think that it's better that child should not live, when killing the newborn baby is not at all wrong ... not like killing the chimpanzee would be.

A lot of money is spent trying to keep people alive who don't necessarily want to be alive.

I suppose, if helping a patient die is killing, I suppose I'm a killer.

It's silly to keep people alive who have a terrible disease.

Of all the arguments against voluntary euthanasia, the most influential is the 'slippery slope': once we allow doctors to kill patients, we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die.

There was tremendous pressure to take dialysis, and there were lots of tears when I broke the news to the family that I was not going to do it.

By more than two to one Americans do not consider what Kevorkian did, injecting a terminally ill patient with legal drugs at the patient's request, to be the same as murder. You may want to note that laws are not supposed to be enforced on the basis of public opinion polls.

If they prescribe pain killers that may increase the possibility of death so long as their specific intention was not to end life." "Doctors should do everything they can to reduce pain, but not to administer drugs to end life, I think we go over a line then.

I believe often that death is good medical treatment because it can achieve what all the medical advances and technology cannot achieve today, and that is stop the suffering of the patient.

Human life has dignity at every age the taking of innocent human life is always wrong. I believe our nation at every level of government must reject any scheme to permit or promote assisted suicide and euthanasia.

What we should care about is health - reduction of morbidity and mortality. Too often, we instead pay attention to whether something is 'normal.' A hospital may spend several million dollars separating a pair of conjoined twins, even though that separation is likely to leave them worse off.

The Karen Ann Quinlan case is where the right to life and the right to die got bound together, and I don't think they've ever gotten untangled.

We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma.

Shortly after her feeding tube is removed, Terri Schiavo receives the Catholic ceremony of last rites. Michael Schiavo stays in a room down the hall. He remains at his wife's side throughout the day, except when her immediate family comes to see Terri.

Almost everybody accepts that some people can be killed. 'The concept of 'brain death' - the belief that people on respirators can legitimately be killed - shows that.

By establishing a social policy that keeps physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia illegal but recognizes exceptions, we would adopt the correct moral view: the onus of proving that everything had been tried and that the motivation and rationale were convincing would rest on those who wanted to end a life.

My intent was to carry out my duty as a doctor, to end their suffering. Unfortunately, that entailed, in their cases, ending of the life.

People make these comments all the time. They talk about this with their loved ones every day. People's feedings - tube feedings - are stopped across this country every day.

It's not about the money. This is about Terri. It's not about the Schindlers, it's not about the legislators, it's not about me, it's about what Terri Schiavo wanted.

The situation around Terri Schiavo was a deeply held conflict over what to do if someone isn't going to return to consciousness or competence. Who will decide? Even there, where we had settled legal rules, we still had disagreement. We're torn about these things.

Death is not treatment, even if it's medically facilitated.

Yes, we need euthanasia, for certain cases where people are in comas or too immobile to even press a button.

I think we're rapidly approaching the day where medical science can keep people alive in hospitals, hooked up to tubes and things, far beyond when any kind of quality of life is left at all.

You better be very convinced, very sure, before you pull your plug or someone else's plug, that you know what's on the other side of the gravestone.

Most of the debate over the cultures of death and life is about process. The debate focuses on the technology available to determine how we prolong life and how and when we end it.