By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Peter Singer, a Princeton University philosopher and renowned animal rights advocate, told a Bates College crowd Monday that he favors euthanizing some coma patients, terminally ill adults and severely brain-damaged infants.

The speech won him high praise from some and severe condemnation from others.

One local doctor, who thought Singer planned to talk about animal rights, called the philosopher’s human rights views a “slippery slope.”

“To me it’s an exercise in dehumanization,” said Paul Corrao, a pathologist. “It scares me.”

Singer first gained national attention in 1975 with his book “Animal Liberation,” which has been credited with starting the modern animal rights movement. He has since written extensively on life and death, world poverty and animal rights and is currently serving as a professor with Princeton University’s Center for Human Values.

At Bates Monday night, more than 200 people packed a lecture room, some sitting on the floor, to hear his speech “The Changing Ethics of Life and Death.”

For an hour and a half, Singer traced 40 years of bioethics, from the rigid definition of death – no heartbeat, no circulation – through its gradual inclusion of “brain death,” in which a person may have a heartbeat but no brain function. Using step-by-step logic, Singer said the new definition shows that society doesn’t believe in the sanctity of basic life and the right to simply exist; it instead believes in the sanctity of a person and the right to live as long as that person is conscious, functioning and can plan a life.

Using that as a basis, Singer said it is ethical to remove life support from a coma patient who has no hope of recovering or an infant who is severely brain-damaged. He also said it is ethical for doctors to euthanize that coma patient, brain-damaged infant or a terminally ill adult.

“I can’t see how it makes a significant moral difference to turn off the respirator or give the infant a lethal injection,” he said.

He said he favored euthanasia – even when the patient’s loved ones protested – if the resources used on that patient were needed elsewhere.

Then, calling it “the other side of what I’m talking about,” Singer said the United States is responsible for the plight of conscious, functioning people in poverty-stricken countries because it can afford to give more but does not.

“Our omission to do this makes us responsible for someone’s death,” said Singer, who gives about 20 percent of his income to charity.

During a question-and-answer session, some of the 200 audience members questioned him about his ethics or asked him to clarify points. One man, Corrao, blasted Singer, saying that similar beliefs lead to Nazi Germany.

“We leave ourselves open to becoming a totalitarian nation. This is my terror,” Corrao said.

Others disagreed with Singer’s views but lauded him for having the courage to speak about them.

“It was provocative,” said David Cummiskey, a Bates College philosophy professor. “Instead of being cagey, he’s forthright.”

Although Cummiskey didn’t agree with some of Singer’s points, he said his views were striking.

“It makes us think more clearly about what we think and why,” he said.

Erica Perlman-Hensen, a freshman considering a career in neuroscience, eagerly introduced herself to Singer after his speech.

She liked the fact that he was controversial. She called his views both “fabulous” and “refreshing.”

“He’s not afraid to say it,” she said.

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