The next Ashley X

Her name is Katie Thorpe. Other bloggers have been covering this latest story. Penny has the link collection here. Let her know if you got a link to add to the list.

I've said all I plan to say for the time being in comments at Feministe, mainly in response to the notice that disabled people weren't contributing to that thread. Here's a repeat of my comment over there:

There are a number of us disabled bloggers and blog readers around who weigh in here at Feministe occasionally. Many of us (not me this time) have been writing about this case during this past week. I’m sitting out this round (of debating the specifics of the UK case) for the reasons I specified last January when the Ashley X case came to attention, summed up beautifully by Brownfemipower back then:

Maybe, just maybe, bloggers who are disabled don’t really want to discuss shit like this over and over and over again–especially when people are not just discussing their right to access or something like that (where the presumption of humanity deserving of life is at least present), but are actually challenging disabled peoples very right to live as autonomous respected human beings. Maybe bloggers who are disabled really don’t feel like debating whether or not they are “burdens” worthy of extreme forms of violence just to suit able-bodied people. Maybe they aren’t interested in debating whether or not they have a right to be alive.

The typical response to what BFP says there is “But disabled people don’t know the burden of caring for disabled people.” Or “But the girl in question is much more disabled than these disabled people arguing against the treatment.” When exactly do our voices and experiences become relevant? I always forget when that’s supposed to kick in?

One final thing: It’s good to remember that in the case of Ashley X, the hospital broke the law by not obtaining a court order for the surgery — one step in the process meant to insure her interests are considered separate from her caregivers, specifically with regard to a disabled person’s reproductive rights. Also, though it wasn’t revealed until a full month after the media storm, the hospital ethics committee was torn on this case and in the absence of a consensus, they granted the parents’ wishes. That decision (or lack of one) occurred without any sort of disability rights perspective on the ethics committee.