Mini-Slumgullion #35

Lots of people think politics don't really matter,
but if you're one of the poor and disabled people
who have to rely on the government,
politics can kill you.

Nick Dupree -- "I Feel messed Up":

This country has been slashing programs for the poor and disabled for over a decade like it has no consequences, or worse, as I detailed in Fighting Cuts, Demanding Universal Health Care, they think that cutting off services benefits them--that it is a great thing. It isn't. It doesn't benefit you. It is evil. I believe this is the fifth 21 cut-off death in the city of Mobile alone, that I know of. The disability community in the South feels under siege. Know that there's still a developing, worsening situation with home care policy in America as more and more people turn 21 and find the supports they need just aren't there.

Politics is not a game. The disregard (or outright cruelty) of politicians can kill.

The latest news on Baby Emilio Gonzales:

A judge granted a family's request to keep their critically ill baby alive, ruling Tuesday that the boy should not yet be removed from life support as the hospital planned.

Children's Hospital of Austin has been caring for 17-month-old Emilio Gonzales since December, but it says its medical efforts are futile and the child is suffering. It invoked a state law that allows hospitals to end life-sustaining treatment in such cases with 10 days notice to the family.

Emilio's mother, Catarina Gonzales, 23, challenged the decision, and the judge agreed to block the hospital's move for at least nine more days.

"He may not live that long, but that's nobody's choice. That's my choice. And that's God's choice. Nobody can say, 'No we're going to take him off, that's it,'" she said. She says her only son isn't unresponsive, and that he smiles and turns his head toward voices.

Probate Judge Guy Herman set another hearing for April 19 to consider Emilio's case.

The boy has health coverage through Medicaid, and the hospital contends money is not part of its decision. Its concern, hospital officials said, is the boy.

Michael Bérubé at Pandagon on "Testing, testing":

There are people who oppose abortion except when the fetus has a significant disability; there are people who support a woman’s right to abortion but oppose prenatal screening on the grounds that it will lead to a revival of eugenics. And, as I point out in the essay (by way of the work of Rayna Rapp, who’s written a terrific book on the subject):

the ultra-orthodox Hasidim in New York are strenuous promoters of prenatal genetic screening because Tay-Sachs disease — a genetic disability so excruciatingly debilitating that it sometimes seems as if it were invented by bioethicists as an extreme limit case — occurs disproportionately often in Ashkenazi Jews.

You can learn more about Tay-Sachs here, if you like — and then you can think about whether you would seek to bar prospective parents from screening for it. Interestingly, Rapp points out that while otherwise politically and culturally conservative Jewish groups (one of which advocates prenatal screening and conducts arranged marriages) have embraced screening for Tay-Sachs, the Catholic Church (OK, folks, here it comes) in New York City owned the airspace rights to a new hospital building under construction and demanded that “genetic counselors be barred from working in the new maternity service to be located there.” So while some religious traditions can be downright extremist, it’s not as if all religious conservatives agree about this kind of thing. Nor is it the case that all opponents of screening are conservative; some of them are disability-rights activists whose politics are generally feminist and socialist.

It's a weird choice of quote just above since Bérubé's post has lots of thoughtful aspects to it, but I just felt compelled to highlight that last sentence: "Nor is it the case that all opponents of screening are conservative; some of them are disability-rights activists whose politics are generally feminist and socialist." Those of us who are feminist disability-rights activists possessing impairments/disabilities are often disbelieved or dismissed when our political opinions appear to align with conservative beliefs. I say "appear" because I think that's a failing of those liberals who can't see the politics of choice in all its incarnations, particularly the ones that don't directly concern them. But anyway.

Another interesting aspect of the discussion Bérubé starts with this post at Pandagon is that the comments are overwhelmingly about gayness being something one is born with. As a topic, that's intriguing, I suppose. As a topic shift, it's tiresome and irritating. I haven't added to the conversation over there yet (so I've little excuse to complain, perhaps), but I invite everyone to do so.