This article critiques the assumptions about the nature and meaning of disability advanced in social‐psychological writing, suggests the origins of these assumptions, and proposes a return to a Lewinian/minority‐group analysis of the situation of people with disabilities. It concludes by placing the articles in this issue of the Journal of Social Issues in context and by presenting questions in need of further exploration.
Using prenatal tests to prevent the birth of babies with disabilities seems to be self-evidently good to many people. Even if the testing will not help bring a healthy baby to term this time, it gives prospective parents a chance to try again to conceive. To others, however, prenatal testing looks rather different. If one thinks about the history of our society's treatment of people with disabilities, it is not hard to see why people identified with the disability rights movement might regard such testing as dangerous. For the members of this movement, living with disabling traits need not be detrimental to an individual's prospects of leading a worthwhile life, or to the families in which they grow up, or to society at large. Although the movement has no one position on prenatal diagnosis, many of its adherents believe that public support for prenatal diagnosis and abortion based on disability contravenes the movement's basic philosophy and goals.
Professionals should reexamine negative assumptions about the quality of life with prenatally detectable impairments and should reform clinical practice and public policy to improve informed decision making and genuine reproductive choice. Current data on children and families affected by disabilities indicate that disability does not preclude a satisfying life. Many problems attributed to the existence of a disability actually stem from inadequate social arrangements that public health professionals should work to change. This article assumes a pro-choice perspective but suggests that unreflective uses of prenatal testing could diminish, rather than expand, women's choices. This critique challenges the view of disability that lies behind the social endorsement of such testing and the conviction that women will or should end their pregnancies if they discover that the fetus has a disabling trait.
The objective of the multidisciplinary expert Consensus Panel on Research with the Recently Dead (CPRRD) was to craft ethics guidelines for research with the recently dead. The CPRRD recommends that research with the recently dead: (i) receive scientific and ethical review and oversight; (ii) involve the community of potential research subjects; (iii) be coordinated with organ procurement organizations; (iv) not conflict with organ donation or required autopsy; (v) use procedures respectful of the dead; (vi) be restricted to one procedure per day; (vii) preferably be authorized by first-person consent, though both general advance research directives and surrogate consent are acceptable; (viii) protect confidentiality; (ix) not impose costs on subjects' estates or next of kin and not involve payment; (x) clearly explain ultimate disposition of the body.
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