The appearance of Peter Singer on Q&A this week has rattled me in a way only the good philosopher can.

Singer, who is arguably better known for his views on animal rights, has views about disability that have been discussed far less here in Australia than they have in the US where he lives and works. I am open about not being a fan of Singer's work, a statement that's often met with confusion among friends and colleagues. "But he does such great things for animal liberation!" they exclaim.

While that may be true, animal liberation is not the only subject of Singer's work. He also believes that parents should be given the choice to have their disabled babies killed after they are born. His argument is not about the right to terminate pregnancy based on the presence of a disabled foetus, although he does believe this as well, but the active killing of babies born with particular disabilities.

I was once one of these babies.

Let me be clear: Singer does not object to my life as it exists now. I am now what he considers to be a person with a right to life. But I, along with all other babies, was not born this way. All babies are born without the capacity to make conscious choices about their preference for life, and so Singer does not consider that they have a right to life in the same way as humans who are capable of this choice. This is especially true, he says, where the infant has a disability.

In his book Practical Ethics, Singer argues the case for selective infanticide. He deems it unfair that "At present parents can choose to keep or destroy their disabled offspring only if the disability happens to be detected during pregnancy. There is no logical basis for restricting parents' choice to these particular disabilities. If disabled newborn infants were not regarded as having a right to life until, say, a week or a month after birth it would allow parents, in consultation with their doctors, to choose on the basis of far greater knowledge of the infant's condition than is possible before birth."

His perspective also takes account of a disabled child's place within their family.

"The birth of a child is usually a happy event for the parents. They have, nowadays, often planned for the child. The mother has carried it for nine months. From birth, a natural affection begins to bind the parents to it. So one important reason why it is normally a terrible thing to kill an infant is the effect the killing will have on its parents. "It is different when the infant is born with a serious disability. Birth abnormalities vary, of course. Some are trivial and have little effect on the child or its parents; but others turn the normally joyful event of birth into a threat to the happiness of the parents, and any other children they may have. "Parents may, with good reason, regret that a disabled child was ever born."

I have a condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI), which has affected my growth and bone strength. In short, people with the kind of OI I have generally experience hundreds of fractures in their lifetime and use wheelchairs for mobility.

I don't generally talk about medical terms when I discuss my position as a disabled person. I take a social rather than medical approach to disability, and so long Latin names for congenital conditions are not relevant. But my condition and the way it affects my life, both as an adult and the child I once was, is relevant in this discussion. I won't pretend that my life has been all beer and skittles. I had many fractures as a child and continue to have them now. My parents and siblings found this challenging as well - no-one enjoys seeing their child in physical or emotional pain. Still, I don't believe that my life has involved "suffering", a term Singer uses a lot to describe lives like mine.

On the whole, my life is and has been wonderful. And if my parents have ever, as Singer suggests, regretted that I was born, they have certainly hidden it well. I have always felt like a loved, valued and equal member of my family.

While my own condition hasn't been mentioned by Singer (at least that I've found) he does use Spina Bifida as an example of a disability that might warrant infanticide. I have a number of friends who have Spina Bifida. One of them is Kurt Fearnley, who I expect we'll be hearing quite a lot about in the coming weeks as he competes in his third Paralympic Games in London.

Singer is, of course, not the only person to assume that disabled people "suffer", that our lives are inherently "worse" than those of non-disabled people. But as someone who lives this life, I know without a shadow of a doubt that his is a misinformed view based on prejudice. It is also one that doesn't take into account the broader social context.

Much of the prejudice and inconvenience faced by people with disabilities and our families comes from society, and from the lack of supports available to us. If the system for care and support was better, as we hope will be the case under the National Disability Insurance Scheme, will the birth of a disabled child constitute the same kind of catastrophe it does now? I don't think that it will.

The late Harriet McBryde Johnson, a disability activist, advocate and lawyer famously accepted an invitation from Singer to debate him on issues of infanticide and disability rights. She later wrote about it for the New York Times Magazine. I've read her piece dozens of times and will read it dozens more. It brings me great comfort that after her up close and personal encounter with Singer, she concluded what I've always hoped; that Singer is simply misinformed about the quality of our lives because he doesn't live it. What worries me is that in the 10 years since their debate, Singer's view doesn't seem to have shifted at all.

Like McBryde Johnson, I am the first to admit that my response to what Peter Singer sees as rational and logical argument is an emotional one. For me, Singer's views about the hypothetical are not hypothetical at all. While he may see value in the life I'm living now, and may even treat me as an equal, he still believes that on the balance of things, parents and doctors should be given the choice to end lives like mine before they get tricky. For me, and for many other people with disabilities, it's personal.

Stella Young is the editor of ABC's Ramp Up website. Follow her on Twitter @stellajyoung. View her full profile here.