Disability Community Responds to NYTimes Article

From the JFA Moderator: The following letter was composed by Not Dead Yet in collaboration with the JFA Action Network with the first signers listed below. We are seeking additional signers. If you would like to add your signature to this letter to Gerald Marzorati, Editor of NY Times Magazine send your name and email to jfa@aapd.com by 12 noon EST Monday August 10, 2009.

In response to    >>> For JFA Post on ther original NYTimes article

Dear Mr. Marzorati:

Was it the New York Times Magazine’s intention to assault or diminish the basic tenets of the disability community's civil rights law virtually on the eve of its 19th anniversary? The New York Times Magazine’s decision to publish Peter Singer's latest long essay entitled 'Why We Must Ration Health Care' (7/15/09) less than two weeks before the anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act demonstrates either deliberate malice or reckless disregard of the reality of disability as an important demographic representative of nearly 20% of the American population.  

As anyone who has read ‘Why We Must Ration Health Care’ knows, Singer spoke “hypothetically” of assigning a life with quadriplegia as roughly half that of a life without any disability at all.  On this “hypothetical” basis, Singer lays out a case for denying health care to people with significant disabilities on the basis that our lives have less value than the lives of nondisabled people.

This is Peter Singer’s most direct assault on the value of the lives of people with physical disabilities past the age of infancy that we have read.  His policy proposals allowing for the killing of newborns with disabilities and people with significant cognitive disabilities are already well known.  

While this is a bolder assault than we have seen from Professor Singer in the past, it’s hardly surprising.  What’s surprising and deeply disturbing is that the NY Times editorial staff have sought him out as a writer on more than one occasion.

To be fair, the NY Times Magazine has published some excellent articles in the past that have covered the disability experience as more than a mere medical issue.  The late Harriet McBryde Johnson had several thoughtful articles published in the NY Times Magazine describing the historical oppression directed at people with disabilities, contrasted with the wonderful opportunities that unfold if that oppression is lifted.  When Harriet died, many of us were taken aback when the NY Times Magazine editors passed over Harriet’s friends and colleagues to write an end-of-year tribute in the year she died.  That honor was bestowed on Professor Singer.  Perhaps we should have taken that as a sign of things to come.

Reluctantly, we have to suspect that the NY Times Magazine accepted this piece because of its content, agreeing with Singer that our lives have lessened value and that we represent a drain on the collective economic and health care resources of our country.  It’s hard to imagine the NY Times Magazine green-lighting an article that targeted any other group in such a way – e.g. immigrants, the poor, or other groups who have been targeted as scapegoats in the health care debates.  Did the editor in charge of publishing this issue even notice that Singer used no factual information at all to support his devaluation of people with disabilities?  

We have to wonder what went through the heads of the editorial staff when they thought about the reactions of readers – with or without disabilities – to the large graphic that read “__ YEARS OF A NONDISABLED LIFE IS WORTH __ YEARS OF A DISABLED LIFE.”

Contrast this with Senator Edward Kennedy’s essay on the fight for universal healthcare in the current issue of Newsweek.  Talking about people with disabilities he said, in part:

Social justice is often the best economics. We can help disabled Americans who want to live in their homes instead of a nursing home. Simple things can make all the difference, like having the money to install handrails or have someone stop by and help every day.

Obviously, the definitions of justice that Senator Kennedy uses are very different from the definitions favored by Peter Singer and the NY Times Magazine.

Without using the term, Senator Kennedy is also describing the social model of disability.  In the traditional medical model of disability, the “problems” of disability are all situated within the person.  The medical model defines people with disabilities as having a lower “quality of life” than their nondisabled peers.  In reality, most of the limitations put on people with disabilities are socially defined – and can be remediated in the same way.  The Americans with Disabilities Act is built on the principles of that social model, acknowledging that disability is a natural part of life and that society has to reflect that reality in an inclusive and supportive way.

The proposed treatment – or nontreatment – of people with disabilities also violates the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was signed by US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice.  She signed the Convention on July 30th at the direction of President Obama. While the Singer essay violates the spirit and vision of the Convention in numerous ways, the most pertinent section of the document is spelled out in Article 25 (f), in which obligates signatories to “prevent discriminatory denial of health care or health services or food and fluids on the basis of disability.”  This is important. Article 4(d) states that countries that have signed the Convention agree to “refrain from engaging in any act or practice that is inconsistent with the present Convention.”

The American disability community, Senator Kennedy and an ever-growing majority of the international community all recognize that public policy has to embrace the inherent equality of the lives of people with disabilities – and public policy must reflect that in practice.  The NY Times Magazine and Professor Singer stand opposed to the more progressive voices of social justice, inside and outside of the United States.

We, the undersigned, protest this treatment of people with disabilities within one of the most important public policy debates in our time.  The New York Times Magazine has failed in its public responsibility to treat citizens of the United States with the simple respect we deserve by serving up people with disabilities as a drain on public resources and to legitimize the denial of medical care to those of us who need that support the most.

The editorial staff of the New York Times Magazine needs to meet with representatives of disability advocacy groups, with the following goals:

1.         The NY Times staff needs to define and clarify its understanding of disability as a basic human rights issue.
2.         If the current stance of the NY Times is that the lives of people with disabilities are, in fact, a drain on health care sources, it should be stated on record.
3.         Discuss training in the basics of covering disability in news stories – beyond the “human interest” and “medical” angles.
4.         Cover the difference between “analysis” and “appealing to bigotry” in public policy discussions.

Urgently,

-ADAPT Chicago
-ADAPT Montana
-American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD)
-Center for Disability Rights -Disabilities Network of NYC
-Feminist Response in Disability Activism
-Hearing Loss Association of America
-Little People of America
-MetroWest Center for Independent Living
-National Coalition of MH Consumer/Survivor Organizations
-National Association of the Deaf  
-National Center for Environmental Health Strategies
-National Council on Independent Living
-Not Dead Yet
-TASH
-The Autistic Self Advocacy Network
-The Center for Self-Determination
-Topeka Independent Living Resource Center

Comments

[Alice Mailhot]

A real challenge here is how do we unglue the question, "who do we kill to pay for it?" from the process of designing a universal health care system. The Peter Singers of medical "ethics" have had such remarkable successes in affixing one to the other that many people, are now convinced that one is a necessary part of the other

No matter who is chosen to fall first (second, etc.), the process of deciding who is simple scapegoating, discrimination against the persons least able to defend themselves.

It is hate speech. It presents a credible danger to the lives of people with disabilities.

[Brett Keogh]

It is appalling that the New York Times would provide a publishing venue for what is obviously the hate speech of the far fringe element of the right. As that movement comes apart at the seams it is important that journalists report on their self-devouring antics and not support them by actually publishing it as if it were legitimate content.

It is further appalling that the group chosen as the sacrificial lambs for this drivel would be the disabled. Somewhere in the editorial process someone should have had the fundamental empathy to call out the wrongness of this content.

The times should LOUDLY withdraw this content and repudiate its author.

[larry Biondi]

Mr. Singer would be ridiculed by society, and rightously so, if if he targeted his spew towards a minority group, like African Americans. But society doesn't embrace the outcry of peeople with disabilities.

[Tom Keogh]

I support the goals described in the letter to Mr. Marzorati from Not Dead Yet and other members of the disability community.

[Sandy Varga]

Mr. Singer ignores the most basic facts of disability; namely, no one chooses disability and everyone, even Mr. Singer, is just one accident away from becoming disabled.
We would all do better to recall the golden rule to treat others as we would want to be treated.

[Melanie Fry]

From New York to New Mexico, each year on July 26th we celebrate ADA’s bounty. We celebrate the access to the world at large the ADA has brought us - from the corner supermarket to the global marketplace. Planes, trains and automobiles; schools, sports and jobs; restaurants, recreation and jobs; education, the internet and jobs; museums, movies, and jobs; universities, legislative chambers and jobs - you name it, ADA opened the door to let us in.

But ADA’s intentions were questioned - so they have been restated. After an 8 year bipartisan effort, the ADA Amendments Act went into effect on January 1st of this year. This bipartisan legislation states its’ purpose in the first sentence: “To restore the intent and protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.”

It has been quite a year. Events have ranged from the sublime to the horrific and back again. The ADAA was followed by a few additional housing vouchers for people with disabilities issued by HUD in recognition of the anniversary of the Omsted decision. Then – Sunday, July 19th, The New York Times published yet another essay by Peter Singer, a discussion of health care policy which sought to quantify the value of comparative lives – and once again Professor Singer concluded that the lives of people with disabilities are worth half of those without disabilities. Not a pleasant read over coffee on a Sunday morning, seated in my wheelchair. But a reminder to us all that we have further to go, and more to do.

And more was done. July 26th, in honor of the 19th anniversary of the ADA, President Obama announced that the United States would sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2006.

From the sublime to the horrific and back again to the sublime. As a regular reader of the New York Times, I am surprised that they supplied the horrific.

[Patty Hattar]

I agree! Dr Singers concept is not a new one. A man named Adolph Hitler proposed the same thing in 1938.

[Patricia A Martin]

As the sibling of an amazing man who was THE major influence in my life, I support the letter from "Not Dead Yet." Living without a disability is a window of opportunity...sooner or later we all face disability. Shame on Professor Singer!

[Blane N. Beckwith]

We are not objects, we are equal people with just as many rights to live on this planet as any other person.

Disability is a natural occurance to be accepted, not some abnormality that needs either correction or illimination.

[Mary Ann]

Mr. Singer,
If you had a child with a disability, I wonder if you would be as dispassionate in your thinking. Your child's life would not be worth half your life. In fact, I think that you would give up your life to save the life of your child. Does that make your life worthless? Your argument may seem to make sense from a logical point of view, but it makes no sense from a moral and ethical one.

[Rachael Benson]

I agree! These congressmen forget that they could one day be in our shoes. Then what happens? They make too much money!

[Susan Chandler]

As a para for over 28 years, I've had my share of pity pats on the head and lots of grief from lots of **** who just don't get that we need good healthcare and access! [offensive content removed]

[direct response television advertising agency]

Yeah, I think the editorial is one-sided and shouldn't have been published in the first place.

-Daniel