Quotes
"[H]old no person or community above critique."
— Sami Schalk
"If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all systems of oppression."
— Combahee River Collective
"There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives."
— Audre Lorde
" [D]oing disability bioethics well involves careful consideration of where one turns for data, how one interprets and otherwise reflectively analyzes that data, who is at the table-and brought to it-with respect to deciision-making at basic, clinical, and translational levels, and the values upon which one's research more generally is anchored."
— Joel Michael Reynolds and Christine Wieseler
Definitions
Ableism: “A system that places value on people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, intelligence, excellence and productivity. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in anti-Blackness, eugenics, colonialism and capitalism. This form of systemic oppression leads to people and society determining who is valuable and worthy based on a person’s appearance and/or their ability to satisfactorily [re]produce, excel and ‘behave.’ You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.”
— TL Lewis, January 2020
Disability Justice: A framework that examines disability and ableism as it relates to other forms of oppression and identity, centering intersectionality and collective liberation.
Epistemic Injustice: Harm done to someone in their capacity as a knower, often through prejudice or lack of credibility given to their knowledge or experience.
Testimonial Injustice: A type of epistemic injustice where someone’s word is given less credibility due to prejudice about their social identity (e.g., race, gender, disability).
Hermeneutical Injustice: A type of epistemic injustice that occurs when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage in making sense of their social experiences.
Medical Model of Disability: A perspective that views disability primarily as a problem of the individual, caused by physical or mental impairments, to be treated or cured by medical intervention.
Social Model of Disability: A perspective that locates disability in the barriers, attitudes, and exclusion created by society, rather than in the individual’s impairment.
Moral Model of Disability: A perspective that interprets disability as a result of moral failing, sin, or as a test or punishment, often leading to stigma or exclusion.
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