Reproducing rhetoric, eugenically

The construction of access: the eugenic precedent of the Americans with Disabilities Act

“…Wachbroit (1987, 6) notes that eugenics, like any medical therapy, is an interruptive procedure that runs the risk of undesired consequences, despite the intention of avoiding disadvantages: 'what we regard as shortcomings may be no more than local prejudices' (7). Thus while scholars such as Gillham (2001), Ballif (2004) and Gould (1981) have situated eugenics as discourse that enforces power structures, this project extends that work by specifically demonstrating the operation of eugenics as a practice that promotes the manipulation of semiotic structures regarding human variation. In doing so, eugenics transforms from an intervention to its own semiotic system.…”