----- Original Message ----- From: Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 12:37 PM Subject: Re: Beeson & Singer/ prenatal diagnosis
>
>
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >
> > >Eliminating impairment does nothing for our liberation.
> >
> > I agree. Only a social movement against the oppression of the
> > disabled, in the context of a socialist movement, can bring about the
> > kind of liberation we need to work for.
> >
> > By the same token, eliminating some impairments, via prevention or
> > treatment, in itself does nothing to make the oppression of the
> > disabled worse than it is. Impairment is one thing; disablement
> > another. It is not against the interest of Thalidomide victims &
> > other disabled to try to prevent the same or similar impairment from
> > being caused in the future. It is not against the interest of polio
> > survivors & other disabled to seek to eradicate polio.
>
> Some with such impairments would beg to differ with you. Dr. Gregor
> Wolbring of Calgary U who is a Thalidomide baby, for instance, does
> not consider himself a "victim." Further he sees nothing tragic about
> bringing more impaired persons into the world and is active in carving
> out a place for disabled persons to sit at the table with bioethicists
> and at world wide conferences on issues which have direct bearing on us.
COMMENTS: If those who were disabled by thalidomide were not victims then surely suits for damages against the company that manufactured it are not justified. Your response implies that you think that it is wrong to attempt to eradicate polio or other diseases that impair human functioning. Do you really think this? You also imply that you do think it is against the interests of disabled to seek to ban drugs that cause impairments. Do you really think this?
>
> "Impairment is the material substratum upon which the oppressive
> social structures of disablement are erected." Abberley
>
> What you seem to have absorbed is the wider disabling ideology that
> disabled people' s lives are not worth living. It assumes that a non
> disabled life is better than living a disabled life. That is the
> whole crux of our argument with Peter Singer.
COMMENT: Singer does not hold the proposition asserted in the first sentence
at alll. Indeed he remarks somewhere that he is certain that some disabled
persons have better lives than he does. The sense in which he holds the
second proposition, as I understand him, is something like this. In general
it is better to have functioning limbs than to be without limbs..and so on.
Or to put it in your language. It is generally better not to have
impairments than have them.
>
.
>
> 'this ideology underpinning abortion has implications for disabled people:
> The general concensus is that if a disabled person admits that eugenic
> abortion is jutifiable, he is thereby undermining the value of his own
> life.' (Graham Monteith, 1987
COMMENT: If abortions on demand are allowed then eugenic abortions are
allowed. If eugenic abortions are allowed then the value of the lives of the
disabled will be undermined. But you would allow abortions on demand and
therefore you undermine the value of the lives of the disabled. How can you
reconcile yourself to this?
>
> and for society:
>
> 'if able bodied society were to accept that those with disabilities
> are equal human beings with rights, they would also have to abandon
> the notion that screening and abortion are benefits to society, and
> that the earlier a handicaped person is killed off the better for all
> concerned. (Davis, 1987, p. 287)
COMMENT: You realise that nothing said in this quote is inconsistend with Singer. Singer is totally opposed to killing off any handicapped persons. Handicapped persons ought to be accepted as equal human beings with rights for Singer.
>
> > What I have noticed from the left is an over bearing need to feel pity
> and put us out of our "misery" -- but not much effort to eliminate
> barriers or accept us as equals. See Jim Charton's piece "The
> Disability Rights Movement" in Monthly Review, July-August 1984.
>
COMMENT: Well I am sure that the left supports things like the following: wheel chair ramps, expenditures on health care to ensure that those less well off have access to wheelchairs, prosthetic devices, technology, etc. that make living with impairments better--and better in the view of those with the impairments. Yes an artificial limb makes life better because it make it possible to do the same sorts of things that the able can do. The unimpaired are the model. These are the sorts of things Peter Singer would support as well. The idea that Singer wishes to put impaired persons out of their misery is a gross misrepresentation of his views. The left has surely supported attempts to eliminate barriers facing those with impairments. But if I read your views correctly many of those barriers are ideological constructs based upon ableism because they are barriers to functioning as the able. It is one thing to accept a quadraplegic as normal in the sense of equal to those with four functioning limbs but it is quite another to decry attempts to allow those with such an impairment to take advantage of modern technology to do many of the same things that those with functioning limbs can do. Of course there are limits to what can be done and certainly prosthetic advance dont guarantee greater happiness and some conditions may just have to be accepted and the social environment modified. For example it seems to me that many people are terminally ill and incurable. The appropriate response is not heroic often painful, expensive, medical treatment of benefit mostly to the medical industry but dignified palliative care. And what if the dying person decides that their life is not any longer worth living? Are they to be denied a right to die because they judge their life as so impaired as to be not worth living?
Cheers, Ken Hanly
Cheers, Ken Hanly