Selective Terminations and Respect for the Disabled

It is widely thought that abortion on the grounds of fetal abnormal-ity is morally justifi ed. More controversially, Peter Singer has ar-gued that some infants with severe disabilities ought to be killed. Many disability rights activists object that such claims and prac-tices express disrespect toward disabled persons, even if fetuses and infants are only potentially persons. This can seem puzzling. If dis-abled fetuses are not members of the community of disabled per-sons, how can our treatment of the former express disrespect toward the latter? In what follows, I shall argue for two claims: fi rst, the he puzzle is only apparent because whether we respect someone depends not only on how we do treat him but also on how we would treat him were circumstances different, and secondly, “ substitutionary arguments ” for selective terminations of disabled fetuses or infants do express disrespect toward disabled persons, even if fetuses and infants are only potentially persons