What kind of a week are you anticipating!
While you think about that, here are your three disability-related links for Monday, April 29, 2024.
1. Reality, not religion, is the reason people need MAiD-free health care
Gabrielle Peters, Policy Options Politiques - April 26, 2024
Source: X (Twitter) via Gregory Mansfield
“Affirming support for the belief of “better dead than disabled” in health care is dangerous and cruel. Canada has made disabled people a killable class, and hardly anyone has considered the impact this would have on us. This country must maintain MAiD-free health-care spaces.”
There are some aspects of this article I don’t fully understand. That’s not because I don’t understand or agree with the very specific disability-perspective arguments against Medical Aid in Dying, (or MAiD) as it often referred to now. My slight confusion is because some of the details are specific to Canada, and recent Canadian policy discussions about MAiD. Still, I think I get the gist, and it’s both intriguing and frightening. If in a given country MAiD, (euthanasia, assisted suicide), is irreversibly going to be allowed by law and built into standard medical practice as an option, then some people should be able to choose health care spaces where MAiD won’t be provided or brought up. Peters’ description of being “offered” MAiD — plus a little imagination drawing on our own medical experiences — should be enough to explain why just having medical professionals raise the subject could be terrifying and yes, long-term traumatizing, especially for disabled people.
2. Postsecondary Program Dealt A Blow Costing Students $600,000 A Year In Federal Aid
Scott Williams, The Journal Times / Disability Scoop - April 23, 2024
Paid subscriber link from Tom DeFayette
“Shepherds College, he said, could never meet the federal government’s standards for students with disabilities within a general population or integrating them only part of the time … ‘Everything we do is about them,” Terrill said. “They’re not a side project on our campus.’”
Reading the lines themselves and between them, my first guess is that this denial in federal aid is because the college in question — or is it more of a campus-like residential and training program? — is basically a segregated, disabled-only educational institution. That goes against all sorts of federal mandates to support only integrated programs that don’t keep disabled people separate from non-disabled people and communities. There may be other reasons for the denial too. We don’t know yet. Maybe there are other aspects of the college, which costs $60,000 per year in tuition, that are a bit substandard or sketchy. It’s possible everyone who works there has only the best intentions. But one thing about disability services to keep in mind is that it is incredibly easy and common for well-intended efforts to “help” disabled people to go awry. My instinct is to say that denying funding based on the college’s segregated nature is justified. On the other hand, I also think that if any disability program could justify creating a separate, self-contained, nurturing educational environment just for intellectually and developmentally disabled youth, it would be some kind of college. After all, most colleges, especially residential ones, are deliberately separate, carefully-crafted, and essentially artificial communities anyway. Maybe that specific choice should be available to disabled people, and not just those rich enough to afford full tuition without aid. What do you think?
3. "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" by Taylor Swift Resonates with Me as a Disabled Person: Here's Why
Kathleen Downes, The Squeaky Wheelchair - April 23, 2024
“Before someone inevitably says it, hold your (white) horses, my friends… I am well aware that the world’s biggest pop star and I lead radically different lives … No, Taylor Swift was not thinking about ableism or my experiences as your friendly neighborhood wheelchair lady when she wrote this song … But isn’t that the beauty of art?”
I’m not a Taylor Swift fan. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. I’m a 56 year old white man whose musical tastes tend to rank both country and pop near the bottom of my appreciation list. But I have no difficulty understanding Swift’s appeal to others. And I will always find it fascinating to hear about things disabled people find meaningful in any mainstream art and popular culture. The connections Kathleen Downes draws between a new Taylor Swift song, and what it’s like to exist as a disabled person in the never-ending ableist gaze and assessment of others, seems spot on. Maybe one of these days I’ll try to explain this effectively how Kurt Cobain singing the Nirvana song “Pennyroyal Tea” resonates with my disability!
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Great article by Gabrielle Peters. She is an awesome firebrand! As a Canadian and an advocate for my sister, Teresa, with Down syndrome, I understand her concerns. The rise of MAiD in Canada is inhumane and cruel -- and needs to be loudly pushed back against. It is a solution to alleviate the "suffering" of the System -- suffering rooted in economics, not respect for the human rights of people with disabilities.
Under the Canadian system, the collective group, with its hands on its wallets, is allowed to sigh deeply and then shrug, saying it was a terrible shame, but tsk, tsk, MAiD was the only solution.
Doctors and other healthcare professionals wield enormous power in Canada -- too much.
"Health-care professionals have a lot of power over disabled people. For many of us, a physician’s signature governs far more than our essential medical care. It determines most aspects of our lives: housing, access to transportation, income, education, recreation, mobility, and other equipment.
"That signature is shaped by their perception of us, which is shaped by how well we align with their judgment of us as a “good patient.” In recent years, medicine has moved away from the use of the word compliant to describe whether patients follow medical advice. Now they talk about adherence. But whichever word they use, the power imbalance remains, and patients and family are hesitant to ask questions or raise concerns. As well, in most interactions, patients have just 11 seconds to speak before a physician interrupts them, research has shown."
Gabrielle is right in advocating for MAiD-free healthcare spaces. "To start with, we should have the right to receive medical care in places and from people who do not contemplate or participate in killing disabled people as part of a care plan."
That is chillingly true in Canada.
Thank you, Andrew, for your views on Shepherds College. You are correct that the post-secondary educational institution is for IDD and DD individuals and offers non-degree vocational programs. The donors are listed. With no government funding for the education component, the charity model of disability is likely dominant. I commend their intentions and efforts. I wish all post-secondary education institutions offered similar programming.