Lecture Notes on Treatment of People with Severe Disability

Introduction

• Discussion on perceptions of moral failure in people with severe disabilities.
• Terms: Social Dynamite and Social Junk.

Social Dynamite

• Eugenics Era (Late 19th to Early 20th Century):
  • Mental retardation and mental illness perceived as genetic.
  • Belief that these conditions lead to social ills: poverty, crime, violence.
  • Suggested responses: segregation, sterilization, even killing.
• Examples from the 1920s and 30s:
  • Government brochures labeling mentally disabled as sources of vice and crime.
  • Classification as "moral imbeciles" when IQ tests were inconclusive.
• Genetic Trees:
  • Used circular logic to label ancestors as feeble-minded based on current generation.
  • Linked moral behavior with family history of poverty, crime, etc.
• Rehabilitation Attempts:
  • Asylums aimed at restoring middle-class respectability through physical regimen.
  • Gender separation to maintain moral purity.

The Kalakak Family Study by Henry Goddard

• Claimed to trace the lineage of Deborah Calicak.
• Example of institutional rehabilitation shown in before and after portraits.
• Emphasis placed on changing physical appearance as moral improvement.

Social Junk

• Deemed beyond help, a moral burden requiring "disposal."
• Development of back wards in institutions:
  • Abandonment of severely disabled individuals.
  • Overcrowding issues used to request more funding.
  • Institutional uniforms and separation by gender.
  • Free labor by higher functioning inmates.

Abandonment and Moral Failure

• Continued even after death:
  • Graves marked with numbers, separated by religious affiliation.

Nazi Germany’s Extremes

• Influenced by eugenics ideologies from England and America.
• Early victims included disabled populations:
  • 70,000 to 100,000 disabled killed.
  • Hideous medical experiments conducted.
• Hadamar Hospital:
  • Over 10,000 killed in 1941.
  • Bodies cremated, with smoke visibly over Hadamar.
• Nuremberg trials revealed conveyor belt incineration processes.

Conclusion

• Historical mistreatment of individuals with disabilities reflects grave ethical violations.
• Importance of recognizing these past injustices to prevent recurrence.