By Doron Dorfman and Scott Landes
One of the most important lessons from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic needs to be about health surveillance of marginalized health populations — indeed, “who counts depends on who is counted.”
As disability scholars who use data and empirical tools in our work, we want to remind decision makers that advancing just law and policy depends on the systematic collection of accurate data. Without such data, our laws and policies will be fundamentally incomplete.
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.
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.