Disabled Personhood and Meaning In Life

Olivia and Raven discuss the ways society dehumanizes disabled people, and the double standard regarding how disabled people and nondisabled people find fulfillment. They revisit Helen Keller’s article: “Physicians Juries for Defective Babies” to address controversial, but commonly held beliefs about disabled existence.   Email us! [email protected]. Follow us!  Instagram https://www.instagram.com/isquaredpodcast/ Twitter @I_squaredpod https://twitter.com/I_SquaredPod Facebook page http://www.fb.me/ISquaredPod   Discussion Summary: 01:11: Topic intro, and the misconception that society is less ableist than it was a century ago. 04:39: Reducing disabled people’s humanity to their health condition. 09:21: Helen Keller’s article and devaluing disabled existence. 12:52: Breaking down Keller’s assertion that “happiness, intelligence, and power give life its sanctity”, and the subjectiveness of what constitutes happiness. 21:26: The different types of intelligence, and how they’re all valuable. 33:02: Lack of power, or autonomy, doesn’t make life less worth living. 42:58: Nondisabled people finding meaning or inspiration in disabled existence, and thinking of disabled people as inherently infantile or childlike. 49:06: Keller’s view that disabled existence devalues nondisabled, or “normal,” existence. 55:15: Outro.   Learn More! Helen Keller: Physicians Juries for Defective Babies, Article in the New Republic, 1915 https://eugenics.us/helen-keller-physicians-juries-for-defective-babies-article-in-the-new-republic-1915/217.htm The Short Life and Eugenic Death of Baby John Bollinger https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/genetic-crossroads/201510/the-short-life-and-eugenic-death-baby-john-bollinger