Call for Support – Rally May 15 from Noon – 1 pm

42 million in cuts to services for the disabled in Alberta!

Over the past several months you may have been aware that Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) has been directed, along with many other social programs, to make arrangements for budget cuts. These cutbacks are happening alongside an effort by PDD to better regulate funding models for people. These changes, unfortunately, make what we need to present at this time more complicated. Administrative changes around assessing support needs is co-mingled with the severe funding cutbacks being experienced across the province of Alberta.

Pride Week Panel on Reproductive Autonomy: Control of Sexuality

Here’s the poster for the upcoming panel, Reproductive Autonomy: Control of Sexuality that we’re hosting this Wednesday as part of the U of Alberta’s Pride Week.  The sesssion will feature Lise Gotell and Lane Mandlis as speakers, with Moyra Lang and Rob Wilson performing an interpretative dance (ok, perhaps not, … but we’ll do something useful … or at least will be there).  Please print and post, or distribute electronically.  Text only version included as well.

Pride Week Eugenics Panel Poster

Pride Week Eugenics Panel Text

Reproductive Autonomy: Control of Sexuality A Panel Discussion at Pride Week, University of Alberta

Wednesday March 20, 2013 at 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm in Education South Building at the University of Alberta the Living Archives on Eugenics is sponsoring a panel discussion featuring Professor Lise Gotell, Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies and Dr. Lane Mandlis, with Moyra Lang, and Professor Rob Wilson. ASL interpreting services will be offered at this event. Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/270019033131796/?fref=ts

Mixed Britannia

In October 2011, BBC released a documentary series entitled “Mixed Britannia.”  A related news article can be found at the link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15164970

The first couple of parts spend quite a bit of time touching on the pseudo-science of eugenics in Britain, and the role it played in shaping its society, as well as its views on women.

The Racial Hygiene Society focused in the early 1900s on looking at race, and most specifically, mixed race.  As one quote from the documentary stated,

The Importance of Being Innocent: Why We Worry About Children

 

The Importance of Being Innocenct: Why We Worry About Children

Joanne Faulkner’s recently published book on childhood, The Importance of Being Innocent, was the topic of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation talk show segment today. You can here the interview here; here is the url directly:

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2011/02/lms_20110224_0919.mp3

A chunk of the book can be read at the Cambridge UP website:

http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521146975

Dr. Faulkner is a member of the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada team.  She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in philosophy at the University of New South Wales, and formerly held a Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Alberta.

 

‘Newgenics’ still rampant in Alberta, conference told

Front page, Edmonton Journal, by Andrea Sands:

 

‘Newgenics’ still rampant in Alberta, conference told.

Euthanasia Hearings Begin in Quebec

Euthanasia, always a controversial topic, is about to get alot of media attention again…

From CTV.ca

As public hearings on the controversial topic of dying with dignity get underway in Quebec, the chair of the committee expects debate to become emotional.

Quebec Liberal MNA Geoff Kelley says it’s been 17 years since B.C.’s Sue Rodriguez brought the issues of mercy killing to the fore, when she fought all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to kill herself. And though the court eventually ruled against her, the debate has never gone away, he says.

Mourning Dove at the Catalyst

MOURNING DOVE

Catalyst Theatre is pleased to be the venue for Kill Your Television’s presentation of Mourning Dove

by Emil Sher, running from May 13 to the 22.

Could there ever be a justification for taking a child’s life?  Edmonton’s critically acclaimed, multi-Sterling Award winning independent theatre collective, Kill Your Television will present the Western Canadian premiere of Mourning Dove by Emil Sher. Based on an award-winning radio play and inspired by ‘the Robert Latimer case’ – a true Canadian story – Mourning Dove explores the unspeakable dilemma faced by Doug and Sandra Ramsay, parents of a severely disabled girl who lives a life of pain and agony. Doug is not convinced her next operation, described as a “salvage procedure”, will make a difference, but Sandra, believes it’s their only choice. When Doug takes matters – and his daughters life – into his own hands, worlds are shattered and no one is prepared for the fallout. Mourning Dove asks difficult questions about mercy killing, familial loyalty and personal ethics versus public morality. Controversial and challenging, Mourning Dove is presented by Kill Your Television. Winner of the Sterling Award for Outstanding Independent Theatre 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006.

Featuring: Michael Peng, Nadien Chu, Nathan Cuckow, and Naomi Gaertner

Production Designer: Kerem Cetinel

Stage manager: Jenn Best

Director: Kevin Sutley

Tues-Saturday, 8pm  Sunday matinee at 2pm

Tickets $25, Student/Senior $17

2 Tickets for $20 (Tuesday May 18th)

Tickets available at Tix on the Square (780-420-1750)

LifeSiteNews on Baby Isaiah, Katya Sansalone, and Annie Farlow

This up yesterday at LifesiteNews.com:

EDMONTON, Alberta, January 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – While Isaac and Rebecka May, the Canadian couple who are fighting for their new-born baby’s life, are awaiting a January 27th judgment on their petition for a 90-day injunction against their hospital’s order to remove their baby Isaiah’s ventilator, some advocates for the disabled are saying that what the May’s are experiencing is shockingly common in Canada. According to Sam Sansalone, father of Katya Sansalone, who was born 8 years ago with full trisomy 13, in Canada “profoundly disabled kids are routinely – and intentionally – not treated with life-saving intervention.” Sansalone serves as co-chair of the Advisory Committee of Family to Family Connections at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, a family-centered care initiative recently launched in Southern Alberta.

He said that “the dynamic that we had to fight became very quickly and firmly entrenched as soon as we had a genetic diagnosis.” “The clear mandate, at least at that time, was that you don’t save these disabled children’s lives,” he continued. “You allow them to die – even though the needed interventions are exactly the same as would routinely and unquestionably be given to quote-unquote normal children.” Katya Sansalone was born with a cardiac condition that is associated with her chromosomal defect. The Sansalones fought hard with their hospital, the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, to have them perform the cardiac surgery that Katya needed. The hospital initially refused to do the surgery, he said, but “they didn’t make it look that way.” “Initially they said we had a choice, and then they proceeded with trying to influence that choice by giving us false information about the range of outcomes,” he continued.

Sansalone attributed their success in part to the fact that his wife is a doctor, which helped the family to research Katya’s condition. This research allowed them to be “not so easily fooled by this kind of misinformation.” Sansalone said the hospital “actually tried to hide medical literature from me.” He saw that on one occasion the neonatologist had a key study on a clipboard that actually dispelled myths about Katya’s condition that the hospital had perpetuated, but the doctor held the study out as though it supported their position. “When I tried to read it, the neonatologist doctor actually pulled it away from my view,” he said.

Sansalone believes their experience might have some parallels to what the Mays are now going through with the Stollery Children’s Hospital. “I hear that they were being denied … regular access to the patient chart – reading it and seeing the imaging.” “That is completely illegal, … read the full story at LifeSiteNews.

Retrofit 5-Pack, end of 2009 spirit

Here are five What Sorts posts that I had particular fun writing–from mid-2008 to early 2009–that can serve as a kind of bon voyage for 2009 … despite the fact that only two of them were written in 2009, and pretty early on, at that. Farewell 2009, farewell! May 2010 bring more sunshine and fewer clouds.

Julia Serano’s “Cocky”

“Let’s Talk About It”: Contemporary Eugenics for Louisiana and the Problem of Intergenerational Welfare

Two birds, one stone

Pollyannaism about polygamy: Martha Nussbaum on Mormon History

Standing corrected: Why is there no apostrophe in “Hells Angels”?

Dr. Norman Fost’s latest comments on surrogacy

Dr. Norman Fost, who wrote two papers on the Ashley case and growth attenuation with Dr. Diekema this year, says on surrogacy in an article below, “It’s paternalistic to tell a competent woman how she can use her body, whether it’s to work in a coal mine or as a surrogate mother. “ He also says, “It’s not clear why that (commodification) would even be of any great consequences to the child if he or she is raised in a loving home.”

http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=27617

His comments on other issues such as savior sibling, steroid in sport are listed here.

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Like a Whisper on Transgender Day of Remembrance

Check out this (amazing and depressing) post by Prof Susurro at Like a Whisper

ACT UP NEW YORK: ACTIVISM, ART, AND THE AIDS CRISIS, 1987–1993

EXHIBITION: ACT UP NEW YORK: ACTIVISM, ART, AND THE AIDS CRISIS, 1987–1993

running until December 23, 2009; for an earlier What Sorts post on the ACT UP Oral History Project, click here

the exhibition poster below is worth downloading for both the images it contains and the schedule of events it lists.

Harvard exhibition of visual media in AIDS activism marks 20 year anniversary of the formation of ACT UP New York — Premiere of the ACT UP Oral History Project

exhibition poster pdf file

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts and the Harvard Art Museum present ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987–1993, an exhibition of over 70 politically-charged posters, stickers, and other visual media that emerged during a pivotal moment of AIDS activism in New York City. The exhibition chronicles New York’s AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) through an examination of compelling graphics created by various artist collectives that populated the group. The exhibition also features the premiere of the ACT UP Oral History Project, a suite of over 100 video interviews with surviving members of ACT UP New York that offer a retrospective portal on a decisive moment in the history of the gay rights movement, 20th-century visual art, our nation’s discussion of universal healthcare, and the continuing HIV/AIDS epidemic. The exhibition opens just over 20 years after the formation of ACT UP and also marks the 40 year anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States. The exhibition ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987–1993 provides an opportunity to reinvigorate a debate around the realities of HIV/AIDS today, and about the links between visual art, political activism, health, and human rights.

ACT UP’s demonstrations in the late 1980s and early 1990s reflected the group’s outrage against a governing establishment that ignored HIV/AIDS as a national health crisis; that failed to secure funding for medical research, treatment, and education; that profited from inflated costs for therapeutic drugs; and that perpetuated homophobic misrepresentations of HIV and AIDS.

Sesame Street Reaches Middle Age

As someone as interested as much in the sorts of people we as a society think valuable as in the processes that we use to produce more of those we value, and fewer of those we don’t, I was was struck by a brilliant post last week at Like a Whisper on a topic that might not be suspected of raising deep points about both these values and how we shape people to realize them: Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary. Like many people born in the past 50 or so years, I grew up on a steady diet of Sesame Street, initially in black and white in the back streets of Broken Hill, and later in full colour in the beach-laden northern suburbs of Perth.

I remember, quite vividly still, a particular episode that has made its way into family lore. My parents had decided that they needed to make a break from a gritty mining town in the outback of Western New South Wales for somewhere that at least had grass (really), or even water in visible supply, and took me on a trip with them east, touring through the eastern part of the state, through Tamworth (my first sight of real greenery), Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, and all the way up to Lismore, before torrential rainfall ended any more northerly ventures. While in Coffs Harbour, Sesame Street was doing its usual share of child-minding while my folks got on with other things. We were in some very cheap motel that included a coin-fed television, what we might think of as the early version of pay tv.

Human Kinds–The Categories of Sexual Orientation in Law, Science, and Society–Part 3

The wrap-up of Ed Stein’s talk at the Human Kinds symposium.  Here Ed talks a little about whether there are natural human kinds, whether male and female, or gay and straight, might be such kinds, and the relationship between such questions and  issues of gay rights.

Human Kinds–The Categories of Sexual Orientation in Law, Science, and Society–Part 1

The first part of Ed Stein’s talk at the Human Kinds symposium on sexual orientation, especially in equal protection under US jurisprudence.

Did Governor Richardson get it roughly right about sexual orientation, as Ed claims?

Human Kinds–The Categories of Sexual Orientation in Law, Science, and Society–Part 2

Ed Stein’s talk at the Human Kinds symposium, Part the Second. Here Ed focuses on the appeal to immutability in equal protection analysis in American law concerning sexual orientation.

WAS Socrates a hippie? I always thought so …

Thinking about Incest: The Whole Shebang

While I was hoping to write up a little more on incest, incest avoidance, and related issues, other matters have called for my attention, and so I think that will be all the posts in the Thinking about Incest series, at least for the forseeable future. Sigh. So here are the 11 posts in this series, collated for your viewing pleasure. As you’ll see from the titles, this is mostly about the Westermarck Effect, the phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction (made prominent through “reunion” cases of incestuous desire), and views of incest within the social sciences.

1. Forbidden Love

2. Genetic Sexual Attraction and incest

3. Westermarck, Fritzl, and incest

4. Getting more explicit about the Westermarck Effect

5. Just how encompassing IS the Westermarck Effect?

6. Westermarck on parental love

7: A Westermarckian cluster

8: Primate evidence and anthropology

9: Avoidance and taboo

10: Rules, rules, rules

11: Saving the Viennese witchdoctor

Thinking about Incest 11: Saving the Viennese Witchdoctor

If social conservatives bridle and high school students snicker at the sound of Freud’s name, the reaction of intellectuals is hardly more sophisticated. They almost divide into two exclusive and exhaustive groups: those who read “Freud” as “fraud” and those who read it as “joy” (its meaning in German). Patricia Kitcher, Freud’s Dream: A Complete Interdisciplinary Science of Mind (MIT Press, 1992), p.4.

One of the more simultaneously entertaining, puzzling, and frustrating parts of the anthropological literature on incest and the Westermarck Effect is the back-and-forth between those defending, and those attacking, Freud’s views of incest, childhood sexuality, and spelling out their relationship to the Westermarck Effect. Freud and Westermarck themselves were clearly at odds, and we have seen much to suggest the basis for that tension.

For Freud (like Levi-Strauss), incest taboos mark a firm line between animal nature and human civilization: animals, and our own animal side (aka “the id”, amongst other things), are incestuous, a nature whose tensions for family life gives rise to the need for incest taboos. This is part of a broader view of the pervasiveness of sexuality in the human condition,