OCR Text |
Show 350 "It's an old argument," I am explaining to Virginia later, in her car. She is appalled that he would discuss this so blithely. "It has historically had more to do with being useful than being expensive. I guess the current thinking is that not only am I not very useful to society, but I am also expensive." I am remembering some recent research I had done for a column on disability history. Untold tens of thousands of people with various disabilities living under Hitler's rule were labeled "unfit for life" and murdered. It was these people who pioneered the effectiveness ofthe gas chamber showers. In this country we have historically been legally regarded as "byproducts of unfinished humanity" or "a most baneful evil" or "a danger to the race." Even today, there is an odd sympathy for the parent who murders his "terribly burdensome" child with disability. "You are considered 'useful' to me," she is saying, rather vehemently, and then after considering the pejorative term, adds, "and I think that's just rude." "Welcome to chronic illness and disability," I say. Virginia knows me and cannot imagine I am regarded by some to be among the imperfect and defective refuse of humanity. But the good that came out this visit with Dr. Emerson, we are agreeing, is that he listened to my ideas concerning treatment. It was as though I had never had that bad moment at the hospital, as though he had never said those awful things. From his perspective, at least. |