Olivia and Raven discuss the ways society dehumanizes disabled people, and the double standard regarding how disabled people and nondisabled people find fulfillment. They revisit Helen Keller’s article: “Physicians Juries for Defective Babies” to address controversial, but commonly held beliefs about disabled existence.

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Discussion Summary:

01:11: Topic intro, and the misconception that society is less ableist than it was a century ago.

04:39: Reducing disabled people’s humanity to their health condition.

09:21: Helen Keller’s article and devaluing disabled existence.

12:52: Breaking down Keller’s assertion that “happiness, intelligence, and power give life its sanctity”, and the subjectiveness of what constitutes happiness.

21:26: The different types of intelligence, and how they’re all valuable.

33:02: Lack of power, or autonomy, doesn’t make life less worth living.

42:58: Nondisabled people finding meaning or inspiration in disabled existence, and thinking of disabled people as inherently infantile or childlike.

49:06: Keller’s view that disabled existence devalues nondisabled, or “normal,” existence.

55:15: Outro.

Learn More!

Helen Keller: Physicians Juries for Defective Babies, Article in the New Republic, 1915

https://eugenics.us/helen-keller-physicians-juries-for-defective-babies-article-in-the-new-republic-1915/217.htm

The Short Life and Eugenic Death of Baby John Bollinger

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/genetic-crossroads/201510/the-short-life-and-eugenic-death-baby-john-bollinger