ABSTRACT
John Vorhaus explores what people with people with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) have in common with other human beings. Conceptualising 'fellow human being' in terms of the possibility of friendship and relationships does not automatically lead to conclusions that are congenial for all profoundly disabled people. There is a more significant objection that appeals to the mundane cases in which people simply ignore others, or are indifferent to them, or see only anonymous persons and not anything precious and unique. The response to animals as our fellows in mortality, in life of this earth depends upon a conception of human life. It is an extension of a non-biological notion of what human life is. It is possible both to acknowledge advances in the animal sciences and to insist that, when conceiving the value of human beings.
