The refusal of feminist bioethicists, (so-called) disability bioethicists, and feminist philosophers in general to address the expansion of MAiD (medically assisted suicide) and eugenics in Canada, albeit predictable, is nonetheless egregious, unethical, and goes against everything feminists should aim to cultivate. Indeed, this refusal should make disabled philosophers (and other disabled people) question the professed […]
Peter Singer and The Mystique of Bioethics, Part 1
In recent years, philosophers have increasingly engaged with each other in impassioned discussions about academic freedom in the discipline and profession of philosophy and across academia more broadly, as well as participated in heated debates with members of the broader public about freedom of speech in society more generally. The topics around which the most […]
On This International Holocaust Remembrance Day
The sterilization and extermination of disabled people by the Nazis during the Second World War are often overlooked in remembrances of the Holocaust. Indeed, although many disabled people died in Auschwitz and other camps, thousands of disabled people were sterilized and murdered before the establishment of the camps, as disabled author Kenny Fries, among others, […]
Disaster Ableism, Academic Freedom, and the Mystique of Bioethics
Today is the day on which presenters to the Philosophy, Disability and Social Change II conference in December will provide me with (among other information) the titles of and brief abstracts for their presentations at the conference. Thus I expect to receive some exciting emails throughout the day! Indeed, this year’s conference promises to be […]
Eugenic Thinking in Australasia: An Anti-Eugenics Centennial, University of Western Australia Online, Sept. 3, 10, 14, 2021
Eugenics is often thought of as a social movement ending around 1945 with the end of the Second World War. Whether or not one accepts this view of eugenics, eugenic thinking has a reach into contemporary thinking and public policy. Eugenic thinking is the confluence of a goal with a way of achieving that goal. […]
Bioethics has Always Been Eugenic
A group of authors has just published a brief essay for the Monash Bioethics Review entitled “Can ‘eugenics’ be defended?” In the essay, the authors contend that bioethics discourse is polarized and politicized, and that this is a problem. While the goals of their essay seem to shift across the essay, the specific discussion they […]
Blowing the Whistle on MAiD/Bill C-7 and the Naturalization of Disability and Mental Illness
As a disabled philosopher of disability, one of the most (though certainly not the most) frustrating aspects of the recent discussions and debates about MAiD and Bill C-7 that have ensued in the Canadian Senate, on Daily Nous and other blogs, on Facebook, and on Twitter is the way that disability and mental illness have […]
The Carceral Character of Nursing Homes and How Eugenics in Canada is MAiD
This post comprises an excerpt from my article “Philosophy of Disability, Conceptual Engineering, and the Nursing Home-Industrial-Complex in Canada,” which is forthcoming in Philosophies of Disability and the Global Pandemic, a special issue of The International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies of which I am guest editor. Additional posts about nursing homes and about MAiD […]
The Reputation of Canadian Philosophy is in the Balance
On social media platforms all across Canada and the United States, academics, activists, lawyers, physicians, and students, have come alive to the eugenic impetus of MAiD and its latest incarnation, Bill C-7, as well as to the philosophical underpinnings of these policies. Indeed, as I have noted in previous posts on BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, eugenics is […]
More on Opposition to Bill C-7 (Medically-Assisted Suicide) and the Role of Philosophers
Last week, once again in the context of discussion about MAiD, I returned to the subject of how bioethics and bioethicists continue to shape philosophy departments in Canada and Canadian public policy with respect to the lives of disabled people and the limiting effects that this institutional formation has on the range of views that […]
BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 