Making it Difficult

The sexuality of disabled people can be a very uncomfortable topic for the general public. It is not something that we really think about. We subconsciously think that disabled people should not be sexual; they are children who don’t necessarily have a gender. Eli Clare touches on this topic in her essay, “Reading Across the Grain”. I believe the points she makes about how uncomfortable the idea of disabled people’s sexuality is for non-disabled people are correct.

When she spoke about how disabled people used to be forced into sterilization, I was shocked to hear that it was legal until the 1970s. Hitler started sterilizing and killing disabled people before he started persecuting the followers of the Jewish faith. I thought that alone would want our government to make illegal, even if it was just to make us a little bit less like Hitler. I was also surprised to hear how difficult our government makes it for disabled people to get married, have children, and keep their children. I have a good friend who is in a wheelchair because of a complicated illness when he was a child, but he is one of the smartest people I know. I don’t believe that physically disabled people should have any difficulty from anyone about getting married or having children. Just because their bodies are disabled, doesn’t mean that they don’t understand what they are doing, or can’t take care of their children.

While I don’t think that it is necessarily right, but I can understand the point if it focused on mentally disabled people. They truly might not understand the consequences of their actions, and might not be able to take care of a child. It does take a certain level of understanding and knowledge to raise a child, so if mentally the parents were children themselves, I can understand why people might be concerned. I have heard of a case where the parents of a mentally disabled child had her uterus removed, based on that fact that she could not keep herself clean when she got her period. She didn’t understand what was going on, and how to keep herself clean. I think this might have been a little extreme of a reason to sterilize their child, but I understand their reasoning. I don’t think I would have been able to make this decision, especially because it is such a final decision. That young woman will never be able to have her own children, even if someday there is a medical breakthrough that miraculously cures her of her problems. But this idea of making it difficult for physically disabled people to get married and have children is upsetting to me because it doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t understand what they are doing or be able to take care of a child just because their bodies don’t work the same way ours do.

(Sarah Jaworowicz, Post 18)