The devolution of eugenic practices: Sexual and reproductive health and oppression of people with intellectual disability

Abstract

Early 20th century eugenicists propagated a system of ideas, values and dispositions that constituted adults with intellectual disability as the antithesis of the paradigmatic citizen, and a biological threat to society. The eugenic schema was encoded in sex-segregated institutionalization and, in many places, forced sterilization. These eugenic practices are no longer sanctioned. However, eugenic practices did not disappear. In this paper we argue that the eugenic schema is now encoded and purveyed through a multiplicity of social arrangements and practices that deny adults with intellectual disability the respect, opportunity and means necessary to participate on a par with others in social life. Such practices include, for example, covert or coerced contraception, and discriminatory child welfare interventions leading to high rates of custody deprivation. Drawing on relational theory, we problematize normative assumptions of embodiment and citizenship, which give rise to attributions of incapacity, and argue that adults with intellectual disability need what all other adults need to make and effect choices concerning their sexuality, relationships and parenthood, i.e., recognition, opportunity and support.

Keywords: Eugenics; Intellectual disability; Relational theory; Reproduction; Sexuality.