Entry tags:

disability, disability: disabled people don't exist

Lawmaker Advocates Eugenics in New Hampshire

A 91-year-old state representative told a constituent that he believes in eugenics and that the world would be better off without "defective people."

Barrington Republican Martin Harty told Sharon Omand, a Strafford resident who manages a community mental health program, that "the world is too populated" and there are "too many defective people," according to an e-mail account of the conversation by Omand. Asked what he meant, she said Harty clarified, "You know the mentally ill, the r#tarded, people with physical disabilities and drug addictions - the defective people society would be better off without."

The thing is, honestly? I don't know why this is news, except someone "important" said it outloud.

A lot of people like to pretend that the eugenics movement is in the past, and I'm certain that this man's age will be held up in order to demonstrate that. But that's ... incredibly simplistic and ignores the way that certain types of people are prevented or discouraged from having children in North America.

I talked a bit about it in a Feministe Thread that went off the rails, if you are curious. Kaz is in there representin', as is abby jean, and La Luba. I should content warn for Hugo man-splaining, Clarisse asking people to do work for her so she can make a better presentation, a few disenvoweled comments, and people insisting that critiquing the modern pro-choice movement, and the "heroes" of the past for being explicitly eugenicist, sound too much like anti-choicers. Honestly, it might be worth skipping the whole conversation, but a few people said really smart things. You can tell who they are because they keep getting ignored.

Oh, hey, was that bitter me speaking? It's probably because I'm evil.

(I have not yet sorted all the other people who wanted on the acafilter. I'll sort that today.)