Dear Spartacist Canada,
I have been reading about the case of Robert Latimer murdering his daughter with cerebral palsy. I, as think as a Marxist and as a human being that his actions should at the very least condemned by Marxist and the Workers' Movement.
Robert Latimer and his fellow ghoul rednecks would have you believe that this was a "mercy killing". Frankly, I think this has nothing to do with Euthanasia. Should Terry Schiavo been taken off life support? I would argue yes since she was technically dead. Should an individual have the right to take their own life, of course (assuming the individual is making the choice). Should women have the right to abortions paid for by the state? Of course. Since fetuses are scientifically not human (it would have to have reached the stage where it could live outside the uterus which would make it no longer a fetus).
The Latimer case I would argue is fundamentally different. Tracy Latimer was not brain dead, she had already been outside the uterus (making her scientifically human) and there is not a shred of evidence that Tracy Latimer requested to have her life terminated. The argument of Robert Latimer and and his supporters boils down to "Tracy had a disability, she was better of dead".
What next are we to regard as legitimate the argument that "blacks were better of as slaves" or that "Hitler was an asset to the Jewish cause". To say that it is acceptable kill someone for having a disability is the same sick logic as supporting Klansmen lynching blacks, Neo-Nazis killing Jews and holly-rollers killing gays. Robert Latimer denies killing his daughter for having a disability but racist opponents of affirmative action would deny being racist they often claim to be "fighting for equal opportunity".
Another point, I don't think their is any contradiction between supporting Euthanasia and condemning of lynching of people with disabilities. Just like their is no contradiction between support the right of people to have vasectomies and tubulosis and oppose eugenics. A person can also supported the right to state-paid abortions and oppose the one-child policy in China.
I think to support Robert Latimer would also do the damage of bolstering the family. It would mean according to family the right to decide when an individual lives and when an individual dies. Based on this one could make the logical conclusion that honour killings "acceptable".
Another point, I think that idea an individual with a disability is less human than someone without was is vile, baseless, unscientific and bigoted. Alfred C. Kinsey once said that "every abnormality exists within a spectrum of normalcy". He acknowledge that it applied to psychology as much as it did to sexuality and to his gall wasp collection.
Another point, turning blind eye to the rights of people with disabilities could allow the labour aristocracy to drive a wedge between people with disabilities and the labour movement as well as between people with and without disabilities in the labour movement. I know many autistics who have been forced into the hands of the BC Liberals because of the NDP's criminal and demented support of the bizarre and barbaric "Lovaas Treatment" (see. http://autisminnb.blogspot.com/2007/09/ndps-hampton-speaks-up-for-autistic.html, http://www.sentex.net/~nexus23/naa_03.html, http://www.quicktopic.com/24/H/fgjQyy3iXCf/p-1.-1). It should also be noted that Tommy Douglas a prominent ideologue of the New Democratic Party (NDP) and its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), was a supporter of Eugenics.
In closing as stated in What is to be Done? by Vladimir Lenin: ".....the [Communist's] ideal should not be the trade union secretary, but the tribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects; who is able to generalise all these manifestations and produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation; who is able to take advantage of every event, however small, in order to set forth before all his socialist convictions and his democratic demands, in order to clarify for all and everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat."
I think it is fair to say that people with disabilities are oppressed not people who kill people with disabilities. Just like its Jews and blacks not Nazis and Klansmen who are oppressed (although the latter may like people to believe otherwise, the more varnished and suit-and-tie among them will claim they are fighting for "civil rights and self-determination for white people" and that they are being "persecuted for their beliefs" and that they are being "denied that right to free speech").
Comradely,
M.G.
P.S. Below is a site that the talks about the rights of people with disabilities and its covering of the Latimer case. The are number of other issues I would have to admit I disagree with [e.g.. their opposition to euthanasia and illusions in the state], however the stance that Latimer case is a case of the rights of people with of people with disabilities not to be killed is dead on.
http://www.ccdonline.ca/publications/latimer-watch/ Latimer Watch at the Council of Canadians with Disabilities
A related issue I have some familiarity with:
http://www.autistics.org/ Autistics.org: The Real Voice of Autism
http://www.sentex.net/~nexus23/naa_03.html No Autistics allowed (it talks about the "Lovaas Treatment")
P.S.S. A major group who supports Robert Latimer is the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) (see. http://www.ccla.org/). It should be noted that their US affiliate the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) (see. www.aclu.org/) which has a decades long and truly revolting campaign in defence of the "constitutional rights" of the Ku Klux Klan. Their BC section the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) (see. www.bccla.org/) is even on the fence post about eugenics (see http://www.bccla.org/positions/patients/83sterilization.html).
P.S.S.S. It should also be noted that people with disabilities were victims of the Holocaust as well as Jews, Gays, Roma, Communists etc. Not only that but Blacks, Latinos etc. were victims of Eugenics as well as people with disabilities.
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