Baby Alexandra

This is with reference to the discussion wrt the UNCRPD article on right to life, specifically the case of Baby Alexandra. I mentioned about surgery to save a Down's Syndrome baby, to which was raised the issue of whether a Down's Syndrome baby can be saved through surgery since it's a chromosomal deficiency. Here is the relevant quotation:

"The case of Baby Alexandra in 1980 and the trial of Dr Leonard Arthur in 1981, are two of the British examples on which a great deal of public and professional attention has been focused. In the former, a local authority applied for a child with Down’s syndrome to be made a ward of the court after her parents had refused to give consent to life-saving surgery. One hospital had attempted to protect the child and ensure that she had the treatment by alerting the local authority. However, when she was subsequently transferred to another hospital for surgery, the surgeon declined to operate having heard the parents’ wishes. The local authority was eventually successful and the child survived.

In the second case, a consultant paediatrician was charged with murder, (later reduced to attempted murder) and acquitted after having prescribed sedation and nursing care only for a baby with Down’s Syndrome whose parents did not wish him to survive. The procedure inevitably resulted in the child’s death."

from DISABLED PEOPLE AND EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS: A review of the implications of the 1998 Human Rights Act for disabled children and adults in the UK by Luke Clements and Janet Read, 2003, The Policy Press, UK

Further:
Some medical conditions seen in children with Down syndrome require surgery. For example, about 40% of children with Down syndrome have congenital heart defects. Some of these defects are mild and may fix themselves, and some heart defects are more severe and will require
surgery. Children with Down syndrome can have intestinal defects that also require surgery.

So we can conclude that it's not that Down's Syndrome can be cured by the medical problems associated with being born with an extra Chromosome can be overcome by a variety of ways and surgery is one of them.

Gender and Disability

Today we had an invited lecture by Dr Anita Ghai, a well-known disability activist and scholar who teaches psychology at the Jesus and Mary College of the University of Delhi.
She talked on Gender and Disability generally, giving a perspective on the topic which will be dealt with in greater detail on two following lectures on April 3rd and April 5th.
Gender and disability is an important part of the course and Dr Ghai made a very special effort in today's talk by talking about her own experiences as a woman and a disabled person. In this way, she gave a very good demonstration of reflexivity in research, which, as I had mentioned in earlier classes, is a hallmark of many social science disciplines and especially of disability studies and also gender studies. Please recall the discussion I had in class about the difference between "life history" and "life story" and how these are valid methods of research. Anita herself mentioned how the epistemic location for her is herself, knowledge begins from there.
During her talk she touched upon issues of sexuality, marriage, sexual abuse, adoption and related themes and gave an account of each through examples, sometimes personal and sometimes as part of her own research, and showed the connection between gender and disability and how the study of the latter can enrich the former.
Especially important were the anecdotes and personal experiences that Anita talked about today in relation to the above themes (marriage, sexuality, adoption).
We also had some very important views expressed by students in the class, especially Rakesh, who almost brought us to tears when he related his experience at the village recently.
I am looking forward to the two following talks by Anita.