Willard Gaylin

Mental Retardation and Sterilization

Inevitably, reading is one of the requirements to be undergone. To improve the performance and quality, someone needs to have something new every day. It will suggest you to have more inspirations, then. However, the needs of inspirations will make you searching for some sources. Even from the other people experience, internet, and many books. Books and internet are the recommended media to help you improving your quality and performance.

Violence and the politics of research

to the Problems.- 1: Pitfalls in the Pursuit of Knowledge.- 2: Legitimate and Illegitimate Uses of Violence: A Review of Ideas and Evidence.- II: Three Case Studies.- 3: How Not to Study Violence.- III: Implications.- 4: Science and Social Control: Controversies over Research on Violence.- 5: Embattled Research: Psychiatry, Politics, and the Study of Violent Behavior.- 6: Fragile Knowledge and Stubborn Ignorance: Agenda for the Study of Violence.- 7: Ethics and the Control of Research.

Who Speaks for the Helpless The Question of Proxy Consent

Abstract When autonomous rights cannot be exercised by an individual because that person is comatose, mentally retarded or mentally ill, or a child, a surrogate exercises this power through proxy consent. The traditional choice of the family as proxy for children is under attack. The concept of relative competence is an alternative to determinations of competence or incompetence. Proxy consent involves not only deciding who speaks for the child but defining who needs proxies. Psychiatrists must familiarize themselves with the issues, in such concepts as autonomy, autonomous rights, consent, competence, surrogation of authority, representation, paternalism vs. individuality, and the hierarchy of values.

Putting It Back Where It Belongs

from the peculiar distortion inherent in personal insight It may seem so compelling as to have some claim to public recognition. Believe me, this is rarely the case. It, like the newborn infant, holds an idiosyncratic attractiveness to its parents that is rarely shared by others. Further be advised: that Out in which you are choosing to let It hang is mine as well as yours! Whether It be the private parts of the exhibitionist or the private life of the arcissist, It really ought not be hung out-uninvited-in the public space. Mind you, I am not talking about the elixir of conversation-distilled by discretion, consideration, tact, and courteous selectivity whereby our thoughts are transmitted to others out of desire to communicate and share.

From Twain to Freud: an examination of conscience.

M ark Twain, that great student of conscience, dramatized in a particularly illuminating episode our ambiguities in the face of our better selves. It is a scene that traditionally evokes a sense of delight over the sweet rightness of things, a scene that has been played out weekly in movies and hourly on television. The forces of evil are conquered, the bad are subdued, the good triumph, and virtuous order is restored. Yet Huck-

An Awareness of Consequences

We live in a time marked by proliferating demands for civil rights, economic rights, human rights, and individual rights as expressed by an extremely diverse number of groups who believe themselves to be discriminated against in our society and who regard themselves in one way or another as “minorities” These groups can be quite small or very large. The physically handicapped—in particular those confined to wheelchairs—are a relatively small group that has launched an increasingly effective campaign demanding that both the public and private sector provide ramps and other amenities that will facilitate their ability to live as normally as possible. The elderly, proclaiming ”gray rights,” have successfully influenced Congress to extend the mandatory-retirement age to 70, a change in the law that will affect many millions of people.

Voluntary Sterilization A Viable Alternative

To do something voluntarily is to undertake it of one’s own accord and by free choice, without being compelled or obligated to make that choice. In deciding to be sterilized, the individual must make that decision freely if it is to be considered voluntary. But since sterilization is something that is done to one, the individual must not only freely decide that he or she wishes it to be done, but also, in legal terms, give his or her consent that it be done.

Involuntary Sterilization and the Law

The first attempt to pass a law mandating involuntary sterilization in the United States came in 1897, in a bill introduced in the Michigan legislature that failed to pass. This bill and those that were to follow in other states were based on the concept of eugenics. This term, meaning “good birth” was apparently coined in the 1880s by Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. The notion of selective breeding is, of course, a very old one—Plato discusses it in The Republic. But this general philosophical idea took on new strength with the rise of social Darwinism at the end of the nineteenth century. Darwin’s scientific evidence concerning the “survival of the fittest” gave a new respectability to the idea of selective breeding, as well as to the notion of weeding out the “unfit.” The English philosopher Herbert Spencer went so far as to cite social Darwinism in defense of sweatshops, child labor, and starvation, while at the same time decrying public education, health care, and other social services that interfered with the elimination of those he regarded as unfit.

Involuntary Sterilization and the Rights of the Mildly Retarded

In discussing the involuntary-sterilization court cases, some members of our group were particularly concerned with the discrepancies between decisions in different states, noting a lack of a consistent moral or philosophical point of view. The question of whether or not involuntary sterilization ought to be allowed under any circumstances was broached, revealing a number of differences of opinion among the group members as to the possible existence of circumstances in which the retarded might indeed “benefit” from sterilization. A particularly telling debate arose over the difficult matter of judging in advance the ability of a retarded person to function as an adequate parent.

Options for the Future

In attempting to suggest some options for the future concerning the mildly retarded, we must begin by recognizing that many of the ethical issues raised in this book cannot be fully resolved. The debate between those who believe that the mildly retarded do differ behaviorally as a class, and therefore require paternalistic protection, and those who believe that the mildly retarded do not differ significantly enough from persons of normal intelligence to justify depriving them of rights accorded the average citizen will continue to be argued. This ongoing debate inevitably means that alternative practical approaches to dealing with the mildly retarded will remain in force involving, for instance, an emphasis on special educational programs in one community and on mainstreaming in another, depending upon the philosophy of the individuals in charge of such programs.