A Quality of Life Perspective on the New Eugenics

Abstract

Quality of life is a concept that has had robust development and application in the field of intellectual disability in recent decades. It functions as an apt goal for individuals to enhance their lives, as well as for policy and disability support. Quality of life helps address ethical issues by acting as a key guidepost in ethical considerations. Current philosophical and human rights approaches to disability support the view that intellectual disability is no reason to assume poor quality of life. Moreover, individuals with intellectual disabilities themselves typically rate their own quality of life quite high. Similarly, families perceive disability as contributing to family quality of life in some ways, although this is tempered by social constructs, especially normalcy, that support marginalization and discrimination. Disability Studies, and critical disability theory that constitutes much of its foundation, offer an alternative perspective of intellectual disability that values its contribution to larger society‐intellectual disability as a positive and necessary aspect of the diversity within the human mosaic. It is argued that this perspective of intellectual disability negates the necessity of new eugenics practices.

Co‐designing the Cabriotraining: A training for transdisciplinary teams

“…In our work, we try to surpass binary thinking (them vs. us) and writing (Brown et al., 2019; Schippers, 2018). We have expressed this as moving from “being left in the dark” towards “flying in the dark together” in Figures 1 and 2.…”

The importance of personal factors in assessing quality of life

“…The fields of psychology and psychiatry, in particular, have documented in depth how various personality and mental states influence self‐perception, self‐worth, and social connections. Genetic and epigenetic factors influence our ability to judge the quality of our own lives and the world around us, although, most humans may have a genetic tendency to see their lives in a rather positive light (Brown et al, 2019; Cummins, 2017; Cummins et al, 2011), and even to be resilient by creating positivity in situations, such as poverty and maltreatment, that might seem to offer hardship (Brown et al, 2006). Personal characteristics such as these, and as illustrated by the examples below, typically affect quality of life self‐assessment in forceful and sometimes enduring ways. Kevin has been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.…”

What Do ‘Humans’ Need? Sufficiency and Pluralism

“…I want to take care here not to over-generalize. The suggestion is not at all that a person with just any cognitive disability is incapable of forming goals or life plans; that is clearly untrue for many people, and for them autonomy, liberty and independence are deeply important (Brown et al, 2019 ; Palynchuk, 2022 ; Schmitz, 2013 ; Shakespeare, 2014 , p. 61; Silvers, 1995 ; Smith, 2013a ), though may require particular structures to achieve (Reynolds, 2022 ). But there are individuals whose formation of goals is extremely attenuated or absent (Campbell et al, 2021 , p. 711).…”