Abortion and Disability: Pro and Anti

NOS Magazine published an anti-choice and a pro-choice piece, back to back, last week. The anti was written by Ivanova Smith and makes this argument:

Even though some in the disability community don’t see this as a modern form of eugenics, I do. Eugenics is advocating for the death of those who are seen as a burden, as weaker or as an inconvenience. I understand there are situations where abortion is necessary evil, like if the mother life is at risk or if she was sexually assaulted However, I don’t feel a person’s life should be a choice because they are seen as a inconvenience or burden. We are human beings. even with the cases above a life was lost and that is sad and should be grieved.

I value my own life and life like me. We all just want to live, like any other human beings. I hope someday people will see this not as partisan issue, but a bipartisan issue that we can all agree on.

The problem here is that Smith mentions eugenics, but doesn't learn the lesson from it. The history of eugenics is not about providing widespread access to reproductive care to all women, regardless of their race, class, disability, trans or cis ... the history of eugenics is about the state asserting control over the bodies of disabled people.

Arguments for the coercive power of the state over reproductive access have never, and will never, work out well for disabled people. It is possible to assert the value of diverse human life without arguing for state coercion of women. It is, in fact, necessary to do so.

Fortunately, Shain Neumeier published a response that more than explains the problems with Smith's argument. My emphasis:

The hardest thing about the current framing of the abortion debate for disability justice advocates is that it forces us to choose between two of our core convictions: Inherent human worth and bodily autonomy. As a disabled person, an asexual non-binary person who was assigned female at birth, and an activist, I hate the ideas and circumstances that have put these principles in opposition to each other. Still, the choice is easy for me to make. My nearly absolute belief in bodily autonomy means nothing if I’d support forcing a person to remain pregnant and give birth against their will for any reason because of my own opposition to eugenics.

...

My opposition to eugenics comes as much from the coercion and violence with which it’s been carried out as from the underlying belief that disabled lives aren’t living. Legal or other limits on disability-selective abortion cannot and will not meaningfully address underlying systemic problems such as poverty and structural ableism in healthcare, education and employment that have perpetuated that belief and in doing so pitted disability and reproductive justice against each other in the first place. Their only purpose and effect will be to serve as a first step toward greater and more general restrictions on abortion and other forms of reproductive freedom.

A near-absolute committment to bodily autonomy  is, Neumeier argues, essential to the disability rights movement. Forcing women to give birth will be a wedge used to erode disability rights, not the salvation of disabled people.

JRC: Abusive Institution Hires Abusive People

Two men who worked at the Judge Rotenberg Center in MA have been charged with repeated abuse of one of their clients. Some graphic details follow. Notice how the suspects use "he was dangerous" to justify their abuse. From MassLive, my emphasis.

Police say video surveillance footage from the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JRC) shows two employees beating and spitting on one of the school's students, according to The Patriot Ledger.

Police arrested Mohamed Tarawally, 36, of Boston and Claude Guerrier, 24, of Brockton and charged them with multiple accounts of assault and battery on a disabled person. Tarawally also faces a dangerous weapon charge for repeatedly whipping the student with his belt.

The men are accused of attacking and threatening a student with disabilities at various times in October and November, the Ledger reported.

Authorities were alerted to the trouble at the facility after the company that monitors the center's surveillance footage tipped off JRC staff, who then called Randolph police.

Police said both men admitted to the assaults, saying they didn't intend to cause pain but were worried that the student, who has a tendency to lash out, could hurt them.

However, Randolph police wrote in their report that the footage does not seem to show the two men acting out of fear or self-defense, the Ledger reported.

The JRC, as a site, is dedicated to the use of pain to control the behavior of disabled children. It's notorious for deploying electric shocks. It should be shut down. Here's an essay by Shain Neumeier on the center.

How is this legal?" This is one of the first questions people ask when they hear about what happens at the Judge Rotenberg Center, a residential school for disabled children and adults just south of Boston. For decades, JRC has worked off a treatment model of reward and punishment — punishing its clients severely when they misbehave. In particular, JRC is the only program of any kind in the United States to use electric shock as a form of behavior modification.

This form of punishment is very different from electroconvulsive therapy, which is used to treat depression; it’s much more like the use of a shock collar in training a dog. JRC aides use two different types of remote control devices to shock students on their arms, legs and torso in response to dangerous or potentially dangerous behavior. The weaker of the two is 15 times more powerful than an actual dog training collar, and has been described as feeling like being attacked by a swarm of wasps. The devices have been known to cause first-degree burns and to occasionally malfunction, shocking someone other than the intended target or activating completely unintentionally.

The public first saw what JRC’s shock treatment looks like in 2012, when a video of it was released as part of a lawsuit against the facility. The video shows 18-year-old Andre McCollins, an autistic black man, screaming and begging as JRC staff shocked him repeatedly while he was in restraints. The first shock was punishment for refusing to take off his jacket when he came into the room. Every shock after that was for screaming and tensing up in response to being shocked.

There have been no peer-reviewed studies that show that this is an effective way of creating lasting behavioral change. Even JRC’s own research suggests that shock results in only temporary improvements in behavior more often than not, so “treatment may be required … on a long-term basis.”

Shut it down.

Close the JRC (Submit Comments Today!)

Did you know it's legal for certain schools to apply electric shocks to autistic children as a form of "therapy?"

It is. It's horrific. After years of work, the FDA is considering banning it. You can submit your comment here.

Shain M. Neumeier, who has been working on this for years, had an op-ed on the torture - and the Judge Rotenberg Center that applies it - in USA Today.

How is this legal?" This is one of the first questions people ask when they hear about what happens at the Judge Rotenberg Center, a residential school for disabled children and adults just south of Boston. For decades, JRC has worked off a treatment model of reward and punishment — punishing its clients severely when they misbehave. In particular, JRC is the only program of any kind in the United States to use electric shock as a form of behavior modification.

This form of punishment is very different from electroconvulsive therapy, which is used to treat depression; it’s much more like the use of a shock collar in training a dog. JRC aides use two different types of remote control devices to shock students on their arms, legs and torso in response to dangerous or potentially dangerous behavior. The weaker of the two is 15 times more powerful than an actual dog training collar, and has been described as feeling like being attacked by a swarm of wasps. The devices have been known to cause first-degree burns and to occasionally malfunction, shocking someone other than the intended target or activating completely unintentionally.

Please read, share, comment, and get this practice banned.