Harriet McBryde Johnson: A reflection by Peter Singer
December 29th, 2008
Writing in the New York Times’ annual ‘Lives They Lived’ issue, philosopher Peter Singer memorializes the life of disability rights advocate Harriet McBryde Johnson.
Johnson was perhaps best known for her 2003 New York Times Magazine cover story Unspeakable conversations. The first-person piece described her journey to Princeton University to debate Singer over his advocacy for the legalization of selective infanticide of children with disabilities. The cover of the magazine carried a photo of Johnson in her power wheelchair (left) with the headline “Should I have been killed at birth?”
Singer recalls Johnson’s visit to Princeton, and alludes to the impact she has had on his thinking. An excerpt:
My students talked about Johnson’s visit for a long time, and our conversations stayed with me, too. Her life was evidently a good one, and not just for herself, because her legal work and political activism on behalf of the disabled was valuable to others as well. I know that surveys have found that people living with disabilities show a level of satisfaction with their lives that is not very different from that of people who are not disabled. Have people with long-term disabilities adjusted their expectations downward, so that they are satisfied with less? Or do even severe disabilities really make no difference to our happiness, once we get used to them?
… According to her sister, Beth, what most concerned Harriet about dying was “the crap people would say about her.” And sure enough, among the tributes to her were several comments about how she can now run and skip through the meadows of heaven. Doubly insulting, first because Johnson did not believe in a life after death, and second, why assume that heavenly bliss requires you to be able to run and skip?
Singer’s piece carries the headline: ‘Happy nevertheless: An ongoing conversation about a disabled life.’
(Photo from New York Times)
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