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If you feel you aren’t versed in disability issues related to Covid, please read. In the meantime, I want to share some stuff I learned working on this that I couldn’t include 1/ https://fair.org/home/media-elevate-eugenicists-sideline-disabled-voices-in-discussions-of-covid-rationing/
The article discusses @ZekeEmanuel, Biden Covid advisor and media darling, but not an epidemiologist.
He also capes regularly for private insurance in his op-eds . His website lists countless private health companies that paid him for speeches etc. 2/
He also capes regularly for private insurance in his op-eds . His website lists countless private health companies that paid him for speeches etc. 2/
The link between his special interests and his role in crafting ACA is clear. But what role could his corporate benefactors play in his discriminatory Covid policies? Worth considering who benefits from elderly/disabled deaths. 3/
It’s also worth considering how Emanuel, an oncologist who wrote restaurant reviews for kicks, became a powerful person in public health and Covid. His brother is Rahm... 4/
I also did a lot of reading on bioethics. I noticed that Singer, Emanuel, and several others seemed obsessed with shaping public conversation and policy around who we should let die. Sometimes these conversations seem gratuitous and ghoulish. (“Sir, this is a Wendy’s.”) 5/
It turns out bioethics has origins that overlap with the midcentury American eugenics (Nazi) movement. I don’t think all bioethicists are obsessed only with “kill off xyz people, save these guys,” but there are a lot of them, and they’re all out of the Hastings Center. 6/
Before I get in trouble for saying that - and without going into too much detail - Daniel Callahan was on the board of the American Eugenics Society and founded the Hastings Center of Bioethics with a grant from the Rockefeller Population Council, which had merged with AES. ..
So when we call bioethicists “eugenecists” we are not being provocative. Many of them promote Darwinistic population control, and bioethics is a discipline literally born out of the US Nazi movement. This puts the questions many bioethicists ask in context. “Who should live/die?”
A lot of the criticism of @ZekeEmanuel (powerful in democratic public health, discussed in this article) comes from the right wing. And, sorry, but a lot of it is fair. The Dem/media elevation of him into power has given a lot of mileage for GOP/conservatives.
While there is little debate that Singer is a eugenicist (killing disabled babies is just that), there is some debate if Emanuel’s outspoken advocacy for the pointlessness of life after 75 is eugenics. I will make the case...
No, allowing elderly populations to die off isn’t going to effect the genetic purity of a race, the narrow definition of eugenics. But three points:
1. Emanuel never mentions young disabled people in his “I want to die at 75 article.” Disabled ppl still took it personally....
1. Emanuel never mentions young disabled people in his “I want to die at 75 article.” Disabled ppl still took it personally....
It was an essay about what makes a life worth living, and the answer was “physical and cognitive ability.”
2. Emanuel has advocated policies elsewhere that involve saving abled over disabled lives.
And...
2. Emanuel has advocated policies elsewhere that involve saving abled over disabled lives.
And...
3. A broader definition of eugenics can and should include the elderly. Truly, Catholic scholars have done some of the best work on this. Also: https://discoversociety.org/2020/04/06/saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud-eugenics-and-the-aging-population-in-conservative-pandemic-governance/
One more side note related to this article: Emily Bazelon, who hosted the two NY Times Covid debates on “Who should we let die and when?” (paraphrase) - and has not been responsive to disability activists - has some work on autistic girls that traffics in myths around empathy...
I had some push back from a bioethicist on Callahan. I am not saying he was a Nazi. I'm saying the questions asked by him and the movement emerged from a dark place. Eg, "What is the greater social good in keeping xyz people alive?" Emanuel's work is guided by that query
Singer is on the fringes of bioethics (though very much in US mainstream media..... SIGH). But Emanuel has a lot of people working with him on trying to "solve" whom to keep alive and let die based on some assumptions that I don't think are pure or organic.
The bioethicist that raised her concerns about my framing of Callahan here (admittedly reductive) said she was against Singer. BUT then she referred to chemo as a "toxic medication" etc. So.... I hope that field produces some leaders that gain attention and don't think this way.
Personally, as someone who's lived a bunch of decades and has chronic illnesses, I might give my ventilator or organ to a teenager. If he's not a white nationalist :) BUT I'm against gov't choosing that for me. That becomes a political issue of discrimination based on ability.
I'm not the 1st person to discuss bioethics in the context of eugenics. It is so common that some folks did a study examining if it's helpful. Their conclusion: it's not helpful unless it's used "to shock people into critical–rational thought." That's actually my whole deal.
That study. There's been lots of other convos. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569201/
But plz read the article! It makes the case better than this tweet thread could, which is almost as long.
