Gather ‘round. It’s time for a rant of epic proportions:
Listen, I’ve been in the position of being called out for ableism before. So don’t think that I think I’m better than all ya’ll. I was really hurt and angry at the time and didn’t feel the things being said to me were fair. But I was wrong about a lot of the arguments I made back then. I was too busy being upset at the idea that I was being called ableist (how could I be ableist? I have disabled loved ones! I have my own experiences with disability!) to see that I was, in fact, wrong until years later. Ableism is pernicious and pervasive and internalized ableism is even a problem amongst the disabled (including myself).
If you think that developing medical technology or expending resources to save the lives of those who’d otherwise die is a bad idea because of overpopulation (or whatever bullshit excuse) then you are ableist. Period.
See, here’s the thing. You can’t divvy up disabled experiences by type of disability when it comes to this kind of issue. So if you think, “hey…you know what, being quadriplegic is just too horrific to fathom,” or “a baby who is born premature and may have serious life-long complications faces just too terrible a fate” or [insert your personal disability fear and loathing here] so therefore we should always just “let nature take its course” then we (read: you) have a problem.
We can’t make the “let nature take its course” argument unless we’re willing to apply it equally to everyone and not just to the people who fall on the other side of the line we draw. That line being each individual’s opinion on what’s just too disabled to be tolerable (even if they’re not the ones who have to live with that disability).
Let’s go back to the preemie example. You can’t say, in 2017, “I don’t think we should be developing or using extraordinary measures (who decides what counts as extraordinary by the way?) to keep preemies alive. There’s just too many of us on this planet and we don’t need more technological miracles to keep even more of us alive.” without me challenging you to follow that line of thinking through its logical progression. Because in the 1920’s the same argument could be made about people with kidney failure by somebody disagreeing with the idea of developing the dialysis machine to keep diabetics alive. And you also can’t say “Oh, well they would have died anyway that’s just part of life. We all die sooner or later.” Because, again, you either have to apply that rule to EVERYBODY or admit that you’re willing to set a demarcation re: which people get to “just die” and which deserve saving.
I mean, you’re not proposing we just let poor people starve to death to decrease the population, right? You’re not proposing we shut down ambulance services because meh, if the roll of the dice says so-and-so has a heart attack or gets in a car wreck they won’t be around to expand the human population even more, right? You’re not proposing we halt cancer research because if someone has the bad luck to get cancer let’s just let it be, right? You’re not saying we shouldn’t bother giving medical treatment to sick people from oppressed communities because their quality of life isn’t as good as our privileged existence, right? Those examples are completely fucking ridiculous, right? Then why does society think that it’s not equally ridiculous to oppose the advance and utilization of medical technology to save the life of a disabled person (in this example, a preemie)?
Maybe you personally think you wouldn’t want to live with certain disabilities (easy to say when you’re not actually facing that decision) but that isn’t your judgment to make for anybody else. The only life you have a say in is your own. There is a difference between not wanting extraordinary measures used on yourself and contempt for the very notion that it would ever be done for someone else.
I hear disabled people all the time pushing back against the idea that their lives aren’t worth living and it’d have been better if they died, and angrily resisting the idea that they are an unworthy drain on the world’s resources compared to abled people. This is a HUGE issue and we should be listening to disabled voices about it. It was by listening to disabled voices that I realized my previously held attitudes about this issue were wrong and, frankly, fucked up.
Now, I can’t side with those who say women shouldn’t be allowed to abort a fetus because of disability. Hold on, here’s why: As long as the fetus is still utilizing her body, the mother’s bodily autonomy reigns supreme and I’m not supportive of any law that would restrict her control of her own body (no matter what I think of her reasons for doing so). That isn’t to say I don’t think we need to challenge the ableist culture and ideas that lead people to choose to abort a disabled fetus. We absolutely do. And we need to challenge that whole “for some people raising a disabled child would just be too difficult” thing with “then as a society we need to put in place resources and supports that would make that a non-issue.” But ultimately it comes down to, not my body, not my rules. However, in this post, I’m not talking about a fetus. I’m talking about born babies with disabilities. [Understand that prematurity is a disability and not all disability is permanent. Preemies may or may not continue to have disabilities due to prematurity throughout their life.]
Most parents want the best quality of life for their children. I know I do. But what is it really saying when abled parents or even better, abled non-parents view saving a child’s life, but at the cost of giving them a perfectly able-bodied life, as something that needs to be forgiven? What does is say when people feel that’s it’s selfish or cruel of the parents to save that child? [Yes, those are real attitudes held by real people re: live-saving measures for preemies.] What we’re saying is that a lifetime of health issues or a shortened life is worse than no life at all. And yes, that is ableist. It is asserting that some lives aren’t worthwhile. Further coupling those implications within the context of overpopulation, which is at its core, an issue of resource allocation, the implication becomes that some lives shouldn’t use up our resources. And that’s ignoring the evidence on how serious the population issue actually isn’t. [See Hans Rosling’s TED talks on global population growth for some challenges to population panic.]
I see people all the time in the disability community who actually have a lifetime of major health issues or are facing early death from major health issues desperately fighting to make abled people listen when they say this point of view (that letting them die as infants would have been doing them or the world a favor) is incredibly damaging and not reflective of their lived experiences.
It’s time to change our thinking. It’s time to listen.
And if this post makes you uncomfortable or angry or indignant then I’d challenge you to really ask yourself why that is. Could it be because you hold some of these ideas I’m challenging and calling ableist and you don’t view yourself as ableist? Look, I get that. I do. Been there. Done that. But just like well-intentioned white people can still be racist, well-intentioned abled people can still be ableist. You don’t have to think “eugenics is a really snazzy concept and boy, that Hitler boy was really on to something” to have a worldview that devalues disabled lives in some way. Now is not the time to get defensive and shut out these new ways of thinking.
It’s time to push back against the messages about disability you’ve been receiving from society all your life and allow yourself to embrace the possibility that they, and therefore you, have had the wrong idea.
Growth is nothing to be ashamed about. Realizing you’re wrong is just an opportunity to improve and be an even better person than you were before. Accepting a more compassionate, humble, and understanding stance on an issue you thought you had a handle on not only makes your life more rich and interesting, it makes the whole world a better place. So thanks in advance.
A Middleground 
