Insights
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Understanding our World: The continuing impact of the Holocaust
Think. Talk. Question.
 Insights Talk
Medical Ethics
Legitimizing the Unthinkable

During the early 20th Century, advocates of eugenics throughout the western world argued that the use of modern medicine and costly welfare programs to keep people with disabilities alive allowed the "unfit" to reproduce and contributed to the "degeneration" of society. Once Hitler took power in Germany 1933, scientists and medical proponents of eugenics legitimized the Nazis' racist ideology and subsequent murderous policies.

We are faced today with many ethical questions about the legitimate uses of medicine and science. During the "Legitimizing the Unthinkable" program, Joan Ringelheim posed the question of "cure" to Harriet McBryde Johnson.

View video of Harriet McBryde Johnson's response to Joan Ringelheim's question.

Johnson's concluding statement -- "Does that make sense?" -- points to the complexity of defining disability, identity, the role of medicine, and the concept of cure in society today. Who should decide what needs a cure?



What is a "disability?"
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U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Editors
March 16, 2006 03:55 PM
In response to the question "what is a disability?" Harriet McBryde Johnson states that, "part of what the movement has done is a continual redefining and self defining that sometimes seems kind of silly. But it's really rather powerful." Please share your thoughts about the power of language and definitions for our understanding of disabilities.
Jim Wilcox
March 17, 2006 11:07 AM
This is a short question which I find difficult to answer. Perhaps if I put my teacher hat on I might offer some input if not an answer. Many years ago, when I began to teach, an older colleague gave me this advise. Accept each student where they are and gone on from there.
Over the years I have developed a positive outlook on the world. I have spent most of my time helping students use what abilities they had rather than worrying abot what they could not do.
Trish
March 17, 2006 10:28 PM
Words are powerful things. They convey not only descriptive information about what something is, but also can convey a sense of emotion about a particular thing.
In the old days, people with disabilities were often referred to as "cripples" or "invalids". These labels were given to us by others, in a time when attitudes about people with disability centered around the idea that our differences or perceived deformities were considered a result of some sin or spiritual imperfection.
Then, in the 20th Century, when we became a more socially conscious society, our attitudes of people with disabiliites shifted from a disdain for our imperfections to an attitude of paternalism or pity. Out of this mindset came common usage of words such as "handicapped."
In today's society, people complain about what they refer to as being "politically correct." Labels such as "African American" or "People with Disabilities" are misunderstood by those who don't get it as trying to "force" our values on others.
What it's really all about is respect. It is empowering when a group of people can finally be commonly called by a name that they have given themselves, rather than accepting the name that has been thrust upon them by others. It's not about political correctness; in fact, I am offended by the term because it diminishes the real power of the words that we use to name ourselves.
hArDiN
March 24, 2006 12:49 PM
I think that a disability is where you have problems with normal daily problems or procedures like doing dishes, or doing laundry but the only way to overcome is to try and try again. - Pleasant words from Hardin
Dave Kelley
March 27, 2006 12:48 AM
At the college I first went to, (with a large "handicapped" population due in part to government funding, students referred to themselves as either "AB" (able-bodied) or "Gimp." Since then I've learned what gimp actually means and that it's not very complementary, but at the time, I really liked that label. Why? Because most people had never heard the word and had no pre-conceived notions of what it meant. When they asked, I just said "watch me and find out." The trouble with changing labels (really common in our politically correct world) is that sooner or later, the definition and perception of the previous label attaches itself to the new one. Words like "handicapped" and "disabled" were touted as not having the negative meaning of "cripple" or "invalid." (By the way, "cripple is to the handicapped, if you chose that word, as n*** is to black people. Perhaps the best label of all, and the best possible, is the one considered most politcally correct these days, "physically challenged." This is an accurate description. Every day is a challenge for someone like me (wheelchair-bound),* but very little is "disable" or in other words, impossible. The ONLY thing I've ever wanted to do and haven't found a way to do it, is ballroom dancing. Labels are tags put upon someone by someone who feels they are better, and nothing proves this so much as the holocaust,* and the way the Nazis perceived their victims.*

* hyperlink added by USHMM editors
DRAKE
March 27, 2006 04:00 PM
Disability is exactly what the word implies.

Any person who does not have the ability to function within the norms of a set of specific ideals of society.This can and will mean different things to different people in different places at different times.

The main point being that; to progressively encourage the maintenance and care of obviously severally disabled people will at some point infringe onto the able at an ever increasing rate-exponentially, to a point of societal collapse or stagnation;not so different a direction we are currently headed.
David
March 28, 2006 02:33 PM
DRAKE says that providing services and care for people with "severe" disabilities must (1) have a negative effect on people without disabilities, and (2) this negative impact will necessarily increase over time to the degree that it causes “societal collapse or stagnation.” While offensive to many people, this view is not new nor is it unique. Even before the Nazi state took eugenics* to the extreme end of mass murder, early supporters of the eugenics movement* argued that societies with a limited set of resources should focus on curing disease and preventing the reproduction of people with "disabilities" rather than providing lifelong care and maintaining their standard of living. Even in today's debates over Medicare and Medicaid, American society must decide what amount, and type, of medical care is worthy of entitlement. DRAKE's message, however, ignores the benefits that disability rights have brought to mainstream society -- often referred to as the "curb cut effect" (because of the ramps now found in sidewalks at most street corners that are enjoyed by the elderly, parents with strollers, rollerbladers, and others). I guess I’m wondering, how can society balance protection for rights and privileges of the disability community with those of the "abled" majority? Are the two necessarily in opposition as DRAKE seems to suggest or is it possible that we often find mutual benefits in societal protections and support for people with disabilities?

* hyperlinks added by USHMM editors
HUGGY
April 02, 2006 10:21 AM
A disability could be anything it could be that you are unable to walk or it could be anything to you cant bend you're little finger properly a disbility is stopping you from doing something. Almost all of us are disabled.

yours sincerely,
HUGGY
Della Labate
April 11, 2006 03:54 PM
Hello, I grew up in a handicapped home and am now a special education high school teacher.The language of "vision impaired" and "hearing impaired" was met in my home with great hilarity. My family was happliy deaf and blind, and family members knew no amount of words could begin to explain what it was like for them to live as they did. They understood that most people didn't see them as equals. For me, as a woman, mother and teacher, a handicap means the inability to fumction as most people do, in a physical way or in an intellectual way. The value of each of us is seperate and apart from this and is intrinsic to the life of each person. All of us are worthy of life, lived to the fullest extent possible.
JEREMIAH CHAMAKANY
April 26, 2006 08:43 AM
What is disability? Sounds simple but a very complex question.It is a failure by an individual to contribute to the society in form of services or intelligentia,which breaks a fundamental and collective chain of works/outputs which determines comfort within a society.Disability is thus not only a physical lacking but can also mean intellectual incopetency.
Frank J. Boyle
May 02, 2006 02:34 AM
In response to the question, "What is a disability?" I need to say that a disability is NOT something to be exploited nor is it something to use just to collect Social Security benefits. At the [...]* there is a person who wheels around town from network opportunity to opportunity, yet collects SS benefits while denouncing SS for the rest of us. In my opinion, such persons earn 100'sK yet claim they are disabled. I think one measure of 'disability" is how are earnings impaired? [...]* A rich, beyond wealthy lawyer, who needs to cheat on Social Security taxes. A common criminal act in the Clinton Administration. In the former Soviet Union these persons are call "OLIGARCHS" . Please use this term to refer to all who exploit some disability for their selfish profit! At the same time the oligarchs want to piratize (not privititize) Social Security. The cost to administer the Social Security fund is about 1%. Ask you mutual fund broker what he charges for your Mutual fund. Think about that additional 1 to 2 % going into the pockets of the persons who contribute 5M dollars from Citigroup shareholder assests to the 92 St Y to get a spot for their twins.

* edited by USHMM
Anupama
May 05, 2006 02:25 AM
A disability can be defined as a condition of the mind or the body which impairs the optimal functioning of a person to his full capability.
This is to say that a disabled person need not necessarily be incapable, it is the disability which makes him dysfunctional in certain areas.
I have taught blind and deaf students during my graduation days, and i can say that the concept of acceptance of disability is highly relative. It is entirely upto the disabled person to view himself as disabled or normal. And for someone who has a particular condition since birth, it is not a disability to him , but a normal way of life. For instance, a person blind since birth knows that something is wrong with him from others' perspective, but for him nothing is abnormal. He has never had sight, so he does not know he is blind!
So a disabled person is not essentially a burden to society unless and until he himself wants to be.
nick
May 08, 2006 12:14 PM
in response to the question there are many types of disablities finacial neurological ect.
some people do deserve compensation i personally have Tourettes A.D.D , A.D.H.D.and L.D i dont demand the compensation i could probably get if i tried
Blue Wolf
May 15, 2006 12:39 PM
Ooooh this is a toughie....I suppose, a disability could be defined as one or more of the functions of the human body being impared or unusable. But how can we be sure that WE are normal? What is the Exact defination of normal, eh? Who knows?
Harold A. Maio
June 02, 2006 10:57 PM
What is dis-ability?

Curious question. Negative definition is a peculiar approach to begin any discussion. Who controls language controls all.

I do not cede that power, the power of definition, to anyone.

Am I that I have a mental illness, severe depression, and should be gassed? T-4 Programm, 1939, non-Nazi doctors. Or denied insurance 2006, US. Or warehoused in institutions, doctors, US, and elsewhere, until...is it over yet? It is not.

That I am a Jew? 1939, until..., Nazi Europe. On the St. Louis, in Miami, USA, and refused docking on June 6, 1939 to return to and be murdered in Nazi Europe? What was my dis-ability that day, America?

That I am of African descent, 1939 US? Is that over yet? Add any ethnicity you like, somewhere people pretend that ethnicity is less than they.

That I am a woman, almost everywhere, 1939, and a great many places in 2006. Excise my genitals, you have the knife. Dress me in a black curtain, seat me separate from you who define. Stone me after you have raped me.

Why discuss dis-ability at all? To establish some sort of hierarchy, A Jerry's Kids mentality, "I am Jerry --and you are not," placing some Oben, above, and some Unten, below? Yes.

Want to know me, know my ability. I would know yours. Want to know anyone? Know abiility.

Want to abstract me, abstract anyone? First know some single discriptor, like skin tone, religion, how I use my legs, my other limbs, or eyes, or ears, first know my sexuality, gender, gender definition. What part of me intertests you most? Undress me with your eyes? Mengele undressed far more concretely.

Want to know me, know **me.**

If I understand the discussion, some claim to define, and to deny others the power to define, pretending, with absurd self-centeredness, an "us" and a "them," a power hierarchy.

What is a dis-ability except politicized definition to a purpose. Such discussions dis-able.

Harold A. Maio
Dr. Erich H. Loewy
February 19, 2007 12:21 PM
First: I believe that "disability" per se is meaningless. Anyone who wears glasses or limps, etc. is "disabled". To throw this into one pot & speak of Trisomy or Eye glasses in the same terms gets us no-where. There are unfortunates born with such severe congenital problems (both intellectual & physical) that their suffering is immense, sometimes uncontrollable, their ability to have any joy nill and for whom non-being is the only relief. We must differentiate between two radically different concepts of "life" (the ancient Greeks did, French, German, English does not). "To be alive" is a biological statement that us correct for tissue cultures, spinach plants, dogs and college students. "To have a life" is a subjective matter in which self-awareness is the necessary but not sufficient condition. Some children with stark disabilities are alive but their having a life is--as far as anyone can tell--limited to pain. Some adults who have PVS have presunably no life but are (artifically) alive. Some, with MCS, are conscoous enough to feel pain but nothing else. A decent society protects its vulnerable--it helps those who can possibly function and have (at whatever level) some joy has to be protected from pain and its joy maximized. Those with MCS have to be protected from pain. We need to specify what we are dealing with and then do the best we can with what we have--which often leaves us with no "good" course of action but with a choice between bad, terrible and horrible. It is obvious that in this category people cannot speak for themselves but they need to be provided with an advocate who is here to protect the patient (and not the physician, the team or him/herself.

Dr. Erich H. Loewy
Prof. & F'dg Chair, Bioethics (emeritus)
University of CA, Davis
ehloewy@ucdavis.edu
Sarah
February 27, 2007 08:22 PM
People with disabilities have harder times completing tasks. One may say that a dyslexic or autistic person has a disability, even if that statement is true, these men and women are not the only ones with a disability. We all share disabilities, some are not as troublesome as others and some are. However, the fact is we are not perfect, but rather all disabled.
Ashley
June 05, 2007 07:55 PM
A disability to me is an unfortunate event which takes place in peoples lives that leads them to be shaped differently. My mom and I are disabled, but it doesn't bother us. We think that it just makes us unique and our own person.
Fiona
June 18, 2007 03:11 PM
A disability. Everyone has one, most have millions. They allow others judge others, they allow for people to hurt other people in any and every way possible. No man is perfect, we all have our faults, and those faults are our disablilties. But through our disabilities we can connect with others that we would have never dreamed about connecting with and we can share with others what we have longed to share for so long.
Andrew Drazdik Jr
August 01, 2007 07:59 PM
When I think of any issue under ethics of medical practice I think of first the basic Hippocratic oath to treat persons without bias based on their pain and suffering. Medical ethics must consider the chronic effects of an illness and how to treat the patient. I think the affects of such a chronic illness is the disability. From my understanding world organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) have gone further to systematicly classify the types of disabilities pertaining to how the chronic illness affects the body exactly.

BA Biology, Minor of Philosophy.
University of Slippery Rock Pennsylvania
Doug Hay Disabled Liberation
November 19, 2007 04:35 PM
The term 'disability' now more than ever needs to be identified by disabled themselves before any further. The allocated resources should be in the hands of the people.

While there are many issues surrounding 'disability' - The indigenous / 1st Nation of Aotearoa / New Zealand, have a famous ending in their sayings; "He Te Tangata te Tangata" It is The People, the People (Disabled here are Nga Hauaa - tribe of)

We have a steep climb ahead, lets just remember 'who' we are and think of our next generations, which also means those able bodied entering into 'Our' world.

Kia Kaha - Be Strong
Doug Hay - Disabled Liberation
5/41 Park Road Grafton
Auckland New Zealand
Genavieve T.
February 17, 2008 04:36 PM
There are different kinds of "disabilities," but I think we are talking about the "incurably sick," a phrase coined by Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust. Those who were deaf, blind, mentally retarded, unable to leave bed, in a physical hospital or in a mental hospital for at least five years were killed. They were seen as socially unfit by the Nazi world. Some of these killing were torturous, like starvation, which occured especially in mentally retarded children. Many were given a lethal injection or shot execution style. Their families would recieve a letter that their relatives had "died in their sleep."

Even in modern day, though no one comes right out and says it, the mentally retarded or mentally ill are not seen as key members of our society. During the World War, a disability was someone that was "incurably sick." Today, our only disabilities are intolerence.