The right to be impaired and the legacy of eugenics: A critical reading of the UN convention on ‘disability’ rights

van den Anker, Christien

Abstract

This chapter traces the ongoing effects of eugenics on discourses of ‘disability’, analysing in particular the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I use the sociological methodology of grounded theory-building based on lived experience. This includes auto-ethnographic sketches of the change after diagnosis as ‘patient with a degenerative disease’ and autobiographical material by a doctor who worked in Auschwitz with Joseph Mengele and by a twin subjected to his experiments. These latter two accounts show the excesses of eugenics which are relevant to the evidence of its legacies in medical and social models of disability. I then provide a critical normative analysis of the Convention to show how it is partly informed by the medical as well as the social model of disability. Implicit acceptance of a capitalist work ethic in the Convention conflicts with a principle of inclusion. The chapter ends with a sketch of implications for disability rights of adopting a principle of inclusion beyond contributing economically to society as is emphasised in the UN Convention.

• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2015
• Journal: Medicine and Society, New Continental Perspectives
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 120
• Series Title: Philosophy and Medicine
• Book Title: Medicine and Society, New Continental Perspectives
• ISBN: 9789401798693
• Keywords: disability rights, autoethnography, philosophy of health
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/833981
• Publisher URL: http://www.springer.com/gb/book/9789401798693
• Related Public URLs: http://www.springer.com/?SGWID=3-102-0-0-0