Disability - Bill of Health

Herndon, USA - April 27, 2020: Virginia Fairfax County building exterior sign entrance to Mom's Organic Market store with request to wear face mask due to covid-19 pandemic.

The Current COVID-19 Surge, Eugenics, and Health-Based Discrimination

July 23, 2021July 22, 2021 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Jacqueline Fox

COVID has shown us that the burdens and inequities that characterize everyday life for many Americans are not merely vestiges of an older time, but an honest reflection of our unwillingness to treat everyone with dignity and respect.

We have undergone an ethical stress test in the last 18 months. While many people have exhibited heroic commitments to their fellow citizens, much of our governmental response is indefensible in a society that professes to care for all of its members. This implies we are not such a society.

Rather, we are a society riddled with healthism — discrimination based on health status — and eugenics — a pseudo-science that arbitrarily elevates some human traits over others, much as we do with breeding dogs and horses.

As a result, although we are armed with the power to prevent much harm, we lack the will or inclination to use that power for our most vulnerable. Instead, we place different values on people’s lives using arbitrary definitions of quality, and treat people differently based on their health status. Examples include placing a lower value on a life because a person is older, disabled, or overweight.

Doctor Holding Cell Phone. Cell phones and other kinds of mobile devices and communications technologies are of increasing importance in the delivery of health care. Photographer Daniel Sone.

Viewing Telehealth Policymaking Through the Lens of Disability

April 5, 2021April 7, 2021 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Join us on Wednesday, April 7 for further discussion of these issues during our virtual event, “Triumphs & Tensions of the Telehealth Boom.“

By Laura C. Hoffman

As a means for delivering health care, telehealth will only be as successful as it is accessible to our most vulnerable populations.

Although the utilization of telehealth has the great potential to increase access to health care while simultaneously reducing barriers to access for individuals, people with disabilities face multiple barriers to telehealth. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted these challenges.

Disability with technology line icon set.

Reflecting on the Struggle for Disability Rights a Year into the Pandemic

March 23, 2021April 14, 2021 Amalia Sweet Leave a comment

By Amalia Sweet

On March 9, the Petrie-Flom Center and Harvard Law School Project on Disability gathered a panel to discuss the extent to which the pandemic has set back progress toward ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities.

Though calls for solidarity in March 2020 declared the emerging pandemic to be a “great equalizer,” the past 12 months have demonstrated how the pandemic has exacerbated existing social inequalities, disproportionately impacting the already marginalized.

The panel discussion, hosted by Petrie-Flom Center Senior Fellow in Global Health and Rights Alicia Ely Yamin and moderated by Harvard Law School Project on Disability Executive Director Michael Ashley Stein, provided voice to the uniquely and acutely devastating impacts of the pandemic on persons with disabilities, who are still struggling to secure protection of their basic rights.

Balancing Health Care Rationing and Disability Rights in a Pandemic

January 15, 2021January 14, 2021 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Yolanda Bustillo and Rachel Perler

Amid the present surge of the coronavirus pandemic, it is crucial that disability rights are a factor in the development of triage protocols.

During the last week of December, the CDC recorded a record of 225,269 new coronavirus cases and 118,948 total hospitalizations. Health care systems across the country have predicted that they soon may face shortages of ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE), and other limited resources.

In Utah, for example, hospital administrators have implemented informal triage protocols that prioritize patients based on health status, clinical factors, and the time sensitivity of their needed procedures. Hospitals in California have similarly begun rationing care.

If these dire circumstances worsen, hospital systems may apply triage protocols that deviate from best practices and impermissibly discriminate against people with disabilities.

Neurodiversity and Psychedelics Decriminalization

October 29, 2020June 7, 2021 Dustin Marlan Leave a comment

By Dustin Marlan

Following over fifty years of the racist and corrupt war on drugs, drug decriminalization is now a social justice issue. As I explore in Beyond Cannabis: Psychedelic Decriminalization and Social Justice, the decriminalization of psychedelic drugs, in particular, is a matter of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Psychedelics have long been prohibited under Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act. However, after successful efforts in Denver, Oakland, Santa Cruz, and Ann Arbor, there are now attempts underway to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms and other natural psychedelics in over 100 cities across the country, including Washington, D.C., which will vote on Initiative 81 in November 2020.

Psychedelics and America: A Digital Symposium

October 27, 2020October 27, 2020 Mason Marks Leave a comment

By Mason Marks

In 2020, the psychedelics research and policy reform renaissance is in full swing. Prohibited by federal law since the 1970s, psychedelic substances can alter how people see themselves, the world, and those around them. Clinical trials suggest they may help people overcome ingrained thought patterns associated with depression, anxiety, and addiction.

Acknowledging their spiritual and therapeutic potential, universities have established new psychedelics research programs. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has deemed them breakthrough therapies for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. This designation means they could be significant improvements over traditional treatments such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Accordingly, the FDA has put some psychedelics on an accelerated course toward approval. Eventually, they could help millions who have not benefitted from existing therapies.

However, despite their breakthrough status, psychedelics will not become FDA approved for several years. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic is making the country’s mental health crisis worse. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rates of depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicidal thoughts have risen in the past nine months.

(Institute for the feeble-minded, Lincoln, Ill. / Library of Congress)

Why Buck v. Bell Still Matters

October 14, 2020October 15, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Jasmine E. Harris

In 1927, Buck v. Bell upheld Virginia’s Eugenical Sterilization Act, authorizing the state of Virginia to forcibly sterilize Carrie Buck, a young, poor white woman the state determined to be unfit to procreate.

In less than 1,000 words, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing for all but one of the Justices of the Court, breathed new life into an otherwise fading public eugenics movement.

More than 70,000 people (predominantly women of color) were forcibly sterilized in the twentieth century.

Buck is most often cited for its shock value and repeatedly, for what is, perhaps, its most famous six words: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” While this may be the most provocative language in the opinion, it is not the most noteworthy.

Dried psilocybe cubensis psilocybin magic mushrooms inside a plastic prescription medicine bottle isolated on white background.

As Cities Decriminalize Psychedelics, Law Enforcement Should Step Back

August 5, 2020August 5, 2020 Mason Marks Leave a comment

By Mason Marks

Amid rising rates of depression, suicide, and substance use disorders, drug makers have scaled back investment in mental health research. Psychedelics may fill the growing need for innovative psychiatric drugs, but federal prohibition prevents people from accessing their benefits. Nevertheless, some cities, dissatisfied with the U.S. war on drugs, are decriminalizing psychedelics.

In 2019, Denver became the first U.S. city to decriminalize mushrooms containing psilocybin, a psychedelic the FDA considers a breakthrough therapy for major depressive disorder (MDD) and treatment-resistant depression.

In a historic vote, Denver residents approved Ordinance 301, which made prosecuting adults who possess psilocybin-containing mushrooms for personal use the city’s “lowest law enforcement priority.” Since then, in Oakland and Santa Cruz, California, voters approved their own decriminalization measures.

As a Schedule I controlled substance, psilocybin remains illegal under federal law, and despite ongoing clinical trials, it is unlikely to become FDA approved for several years. Social distancing requirements due to COVID-19 are disrupting medical research causing further delays. But as the November election approaches, other U.S. cities prepare to vote on psychedelics.

Announcing The Journal of Philosophy of Disability

June 18, 2020June 18, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

The Journal of Philosophy of Disability (JPD) is a new journal devoted to the philosophical study of disability.

Disability is central to human life. As the slogan from disability studies goes: “disability is everywhere, once you know how to look for it.” After a steady stream of scholarship from the 1990s onward, work in the field of philosophy of disability has expanded exponentially. Despite this explosion, there has never been a peer-reviewed journal devoted to scholarship in the field of philosophy of disability. Until now.

The Disparate Impact of COVID-19 on Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

April 22, 2020April 22, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By James W. Lytle

Katrina Jirik’s compelling post on the dangers posed to people with disabilities if care is rationed during the COVID-19 pandemic powerfully characterizes discriminatory allocation criteria as a form of “updated eugenic thought” that cannot be reconciled with the Americans with Disabilities Act and other anti-discrimination statutes.

I worry, however, that persons with disabilities and other vulnerable populations face an even graver threat: policymakers may unintentionally adopt policies that neglect to consider the unique needs of persons with disabilities and inadvertently place them at much greater risk.

Category: Disability