My Beautiful Wickedness


Enough already.
October 7, 2007, 9:51 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

Baby Ashley all over again.

I keep writing things and deleting them. It’s like opening my mouth to speak and then I have to sort of check myself to be sure that I am really still living in a world in which shit like this should have to be addressed.

A medically unnecessary hysterectomy? Preferable in its long-term effects to menstruation?

C’mon.


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[…] Human Dignity Posted on October 8, 2007 by Aunt B. Maybe this is a dumbass question, but, if your daughter has severe cerebral palsy and you’re worried that she would be confused and t…, couldn’t you put her on the Pill and just never give her the sugar pill week?  I mean, call […]

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I don’t know what the laws and history of eugenic sterilization are in the UK, but in the “Ashley” case, the surgery was not only unethical, it was also illegal–the family and the hospital neglected to get an important court order–and the girl in question might not have met the criteria for a court-ordered sterilization even if they had tried. If the UK has similar laws, I hope somebody is watching more carefully this time. (That this family is taking about this in the press before the surgery, and that they’re apparently using their real full names, might mean there will be more scrutiny of the process, and more opportunities for effective activism.)

I’m teaching a set of readings on eugenic sterilization in the US this week in my online course–I wish it wasn’t quite so timely.

Comment by Penny

According to the WHO, about 6% of disabled women in the world have been involuntarily/forcibly sterilized. The UK is a signator on the UN Declaration (within the last year), but the history of forcible sterilization there has been similar to — and in many cases, more aggressive than — the US. It’s what one would expect from a country with an imperial past and enduring imperial pretensions. The hierarchical thinking doesn’t go away; it simply fastens itself to “defectives” within the nation.

Gah. Some days I’m just not up to this.

Comment by bridgett




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