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Disability Bioethics

Bioethics Forum Essay
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Bioethicists Should Speak Up Against Facilitated Communication

Last month, Netflix premiered the documentary Tell Them You Love Me, the story of former Rutgers University professor Anna Stubblefield, who was convicted of first-degree aggravated sexual assault in 2015...
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Bioethics Forum Essay
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Should He Have a Vasectomy?

Whether and under what conditions would it be legal and ethical to proceed with a vasectomy requested by D’s parents with D’s assent but without his full understanding, considering the history of forced sterilization of individuals with intellectual disabilities in the United States.
Read Should He Have a Vasectomy?
Bioethics Forum Essay

Living through the Pandemic in New Zealand

In New Zealand we have been saved from the worst devastations of Covid-19 by a firm government, courage and care for one another, and our geographic “moat.” With the recent minor surge of cases, our government has, once again, encouraged us to respond as a team of 5 million. We have been guided by the slogan “Be kind.”
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Bioethics Forum Essay

Covid-19 and Deafness: Why the Protocols Fall Short

I am hard-of-hearing; I wear two hearing aids, and Covid-19 has made all forms of human interaction extraordinarily difficult.
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Bioethics Forum Essay
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Black Bioethics and How the Failures of the Profession Paved the Way for Its Existence

In many ways, black bioethics can be explained very simply as the exploration and interrogation of any event, ideal, technological advancement, person, or institution that directly or indirectly affects the health or well-being of black (loosely defined) individuals or the black population. Black bioethics is taking what we do in bioethics and specifically applying it to black people. But in other ways black bioethics is more than this; it is a rebellion against bioethics.
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Bioethics Forum Essay

Against Personal Ventilator Reallocation

Personal ventilators used by people with disabilities should not reallocated to people with Covid-19. Triage protocols should be immediately clarified and explicitly state that personal ventilators will be protected in all cases.
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Bioethics Forum Essay

The Americans with Disabilities Act at 30: A Cause for Celebration During Covid-19?

A central mandate of the ADA is to make the goods of society accessible to people with disabilities and overcome their segregation in civil society through reasonable accommodation that allows them to go to work, live with their neighbors, and avoid institutionalization. But let’s not delude ourselves with historic sentimentality as disability law is placed under tremendous stress by the pandemic.
Read The Americans with Disabilities Act at 30: A Cause for Celebration During Covid-19?
Bioethics Forum Essay

#WeAreEssential: Why Disabled People Should Be Appointed to Hospital Triage Committees

There's a long history of conflict between the institution of medicine, bioethics, and the disability community. With Covid-19 disproportionately affecting people with disabilities, we must do everything we can to avoid a triage decision-making process that pushes disabled people to the side. One important action is to appoint people with disabilities, and especially those of color, to hospital triage committees. To our knowledge, no hospital or state crisis standards of care protocol mandates this kind of representation.
Read #WeAreEssential: Why Disabled People Should Be Appointed to Hospital Triage Committees
Bioethics Forum Essay

Diversity and Solidarity in Response to Covid-19

Covid-19 imposes burdens in different—but very serious—ways on different individuals and groups. We see it in policies that address what to do in the face of shortages of scarce resources. We begin by challenging a common claim—that people with disabilities as a group will be harmed by triage policies that consider patients’ prospect of medical benefit.
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Bioethics Forum Essay

When It Comes to Rationing, Disability Rights Law Prohibits More than Prejudice

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights resolved one of many civil rights complaints alleging discrimination on the basis of disability–the first instance of federal intervention to enforce civil rights laws in rationing protocols since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis. But more work is needed to protect patients with disabilities in the allocation of scarce medical resources.
Read When It Comes to Rationing, Disability Rights Law Prohibits More than Prejudice
Bioethics Forum Essay

New York State Task Force on Life and the Law Ventilator Allocation Guidelines: How Our Views on Disability Evolved

The views of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law on ventilator-dependent chronic care patients evolved over the years. Here's how, and why.
Read New York State Task Force on Life and the Law Ventilator Allocation Guidelines: How Our Views on Disability Evolved
Bioethics Forum Essay

Do New York State’s Ventilator Allocation Guidelines Place Chronic Ventilator Users at Risk? Clarification Needed

There is a lack of clarity about the New York State Task Force guidelines on ventilator allocation. I believe disability rights concerns regarding the recommendations on chronic ventilator users are well-founded. This lack of clarity may cost lives.
Read Do New York State’s Ventilator Allocation Guidelines Place Chronic Ventilator Users at Risk? Clarification Needed
Bioethics Forum Essay

Confronting Disability Discrimination During the Pandemic

As hospitals and public health authorities devise triage protocols to allocate scarce critical-care resources during the Covid-19 pandemic, people with disabilities are expressing alarm that these protocols devalue them and exacerbate long-entrenched ableism in health care. Lawsuits alleging disability discrimination in have been filed in Washington and Alabama. The U.S. Office for Civil Rights is investigating disability discrimination complaints in triage protocols. The challenge is to develop protocols that will minimize discrimination in the health care system.
Read Confronting Disability Discrimination During the Pandemic
Bioethics Forum Essay

Disabusing the Disability Critique of the New York State Task Force Report on Ventilator Allocation

I am a member of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law and helped write its 2015 guidelines on the allocation of ventilators during a public health emergency. The position outlined by the Task Force report has been a point of confusion in the media. I don't believe that the Task Force recommendations discriminate against people with disabilities.
Read Disabusing the Disability Critique of the New York State Task Force Report on Ventilator Allocation
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