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Public Events Series: The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability
The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability was a series of six public events held between 2019 and 2022 in which scholars, artists, writers, and thought leaders with disabilities reflected...Read “Public Events Series: The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability”
Hastings Center News
Hastings Rice Family Fellow Founds New Journal on Disability
Read “Hastings Rice Family Fellow Founds New Journal on Disability”
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.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
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.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.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
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.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”
Hastings Center News
Covid-19 Crisis Triage—Optimizing Health Outcomes and Disability Rights
Read “Covid-19 Crisis Triage—Optimizing Health Outcomes and Disability Rights”
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
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.Bioethics Forum Essay
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.Read “Black Bioethics and How the Failures of the Profession Paved the Way for Its Existence”
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.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.”Hastings Center News
What Does It Mean to Move Through the World with a Disability?
The answer to that question is not straightforward, as was made vivid in “Navigating: On Disability, Technology, and Experiencing the World,” a recent virtual event. It was the second in...Read “What Does It Mean to Move Through the World with a Disability?”
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Disrupting Ableism with Artful Activism
Part 3 of our online event series, “The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability” What will it take to bring about lasting justice for disabled people in the United States?...Hastings Center News
Disability as Metaphor
A new article in English Literary History by Liz Bowen, the Rice Family Fellow in Bioethics and the Humanities at The Hastings Center, explores the use of metaphors characterizing disability....Page
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at The Hastings Center
Table of contents: Introduction The Hastings Center is committed to the long-term work of ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion in our scholarship, in the field of bioethics, and in the...Read “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at The Hastings Center”
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Enjoying: Disability as a Creative Force
Part 5 of our series, “The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability” To experience disabled joy is to feel pleasure, abundance, and fulfillment because of—not despite—disability. Whether through engaging with...Page
Event to Examine Disability as a Creative Force
SEPTEMBER 22, 2021: The Hastings Center, a global ethics leader, announce that three artists and writers will lead a special virtual event — “Enjoying: Disability as a Creative Force” —...Page
We Belong To One Another: Disability and Family Making
Part 6 of our online event series, “The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability” Ableism frames disability as a “family problem,” in which disability is a tragedy for nondisabled family...Read “We Belong To One Another: Disability and Family Making”
Hastings Center News
If Not Now, Then When? Taking Disability Seriously in Bioethics
The impression of bioethicists as “dangerous” has been a theme in the disability movement for decades. Is it outdated? An article in the Hastings Center Report argues that ableism and...Read “If Not Now, Then When? Taking Disability Seriously in Bioethics”
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Overcoming Ableism in Medical and Nursing Education
Co-Principal Investigators: Erik Parens, Liz Bowen Investigator: Mildred Solomon Funder: The Macy Foundation Equitable health care for all is a bioethical imperative. And discrimination against people with disabilities—ableism—stands in the...Hastings Center News
Overcoming Ableism in Medical and Nursing Education
Equitable health care for all is a bioethical imperative. And discrimination against people with disabilities—ableism—stands in the way of fulfilling that imperative. A new Hastings Center project constitutes the first...