The Right to Be Impaired and the Legacy of Eugenics: A Critical Reading of the UN Convention on “Disability” Rights

Abstract

The links between medicine and society can be viewed from many perspectives yet their relationship should always be seen as contested and political. Here I use human rights as my starting point. A sociological account of human rights should address the contested human rights discourse and its possibilities for emancipation as well as domination. Silences are not simply absences, but constitutive features of discourse and practice which inform issues of inclusion, exclusion, and participation (Bhambra and Shilliam in Silencing Human rights. Critical engagements with a contested project, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2008). The rights of “disabled” persons have long been a silence in human rights discourse, despite the atrocities against them and many other groups during World War II that informed the development of the UN human rights framework. However, the experimental gassing of 275,000 Germans labeled as “disabled” under the Nazi T4 program (Baker in Teachers College Record, 104:663–703, 2002) predating the war was not widely known, although the Allied governments had at least known of the death camps since 1944 (Swiebocki in London has been informed. Reports by Auschwitz Escapees, Auschwitz Museum, Oswiecim, 2002). Therefore, despite the human rights agenda of the UN being conceptually linked to eugenics by using its worst outcomes as a point of reference, the rights of people targeted by disability oppression were not yet explicitly included as a matter of international concern.