Peter Singer: Because the majority of you are here 
because you have a concern with people 
with cognitive disabilities, those 
who are working with people with 
cognitive disabilities, or those who 
are the care or the relatives of 
people with cognitive disabilities 
will say, "well, that's not like the 
people I work with or care for". That's 
true. And obviously the questions
get more complicated once we move to 
issues about mild disability and so
on. But, let me say, these are the 
people that I'm focusing on when I'm 
talking about those with cognitive 
disabilities. For the moment, I have in 
mind those with profound mental retardation 
as defined here and later we will have
 time for discussion.
It's simply speciesism in nicer terms
 to say, "Just being a member of the 
species homo sapiens, just being born
 with human parents, gives you moral
worth and dignity." I don't see that
 the argument is really different from 
a white racist saying, when it comes
 to a question about how one should 
treat people of different races, 
"well, whose side are you on? We're the 
ones who are doing the judging here. 
Why don't we simply prefer our kind 
because it is our kind?" I don't 
think we can rest on species membership
and such, and say that's some sort 
of biological thing that we all have in 
common and that's why we're entitled
 to give ourselves a superior status 
to those who are not members of our species.
