Works in Progress Group 20: Autonomy and Self-Determination

Go Back

Session Type: Works-in-Progress

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: N/A

Room: Union Square 19&20

Floor: 4th Floor

Group #20: Autonomy and Self-Determination

Desexualizing Disability as Structural Violence
Natalie M. Chin, CUNY School of Law

What constitutes violence? Throughout history, images of state-sanctioned violence have resulted in nationwide protests and propelled change. The filming of the George Floyd murder and the investigative reporting of the Willowbrook State School that exposed the inhumane conditions of this institution are two such examples. Now consider the case of a 22-year-old woman with intellectual disability who has a congenital condition that resulted in breast asymmetry. A surgeon suggested breast augmentation as a common approach. Fearing that the surgery would place her daughter at an increased risk of sexual assault, the mother asked the doctor to perform a mastectomy “to reduce [her daughter’s] “sexuality.”
When conceptualizing violence, there are moments one can envision that display palpable, noxious, and jarring acts of harm. Then there are other forms of violence. Violence that is less confrontational, simmering and growing to a potentially calamitous effect. The above case of the proposed desexualization of the 22-year-old woman is an example of the largely unseen, violence of desexualizing disability that is reinforced through the structural systems that erase the sexual identities of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
This Article seeks to position the violence of desexualizing disability as structural violence. By situating desexualizing disability as structural violence, the Article identifies the structural means to which desexualization is effectuated. It examines the cascading consequences that flow from desexualizing disability. The Article concludes by proposing new strategies for changing the reactive paradigm that predominate the disability and sexuality narrative with the hope of guiding future advocacy.
A Good Death: End-of-Life Lawyering Through a Relational Autonomy Lens
Genevieve Mann, Gonzaga School of Law

End-of-life jurisprudence is firmly entrenched in safeguarding traditional notions of personal autonomy: self-determination and absolute independence. The centerpiece of this conceptualization is personal liberty and a nearly impenetrable right to be free from interference by others. Intended to empower individuals to choose their final destiny with the promise of future compliance, legislators, doctors and lawyers urged the dying to execute “advance directives.” Despite tenacious efforts, advance directives remain underutilized and ineffective. Many people are mired in death anxiety, indecision, and stymied by how to plan for a hypothetical illness or disease. In the end, many do not get the death they choose: to trust in others and share the arduous decision-making responsibility with loved ones.

Lawyers play a role in this individualistic death by clinging to a rigid devotion to traditional autonomy. The goal of end-of-life counseling remains to preserve this rights-based paradigm and insist that clients make decisions alone, unobstructed by family and friends. This narrow view of autonomy may paradoxically ignore actual client wishes by depriving them of the inclusion of loved ones. This article proposes lawyers use an alternative counseling model that recognizes and values the inherent interplay between client independence and interdependence. Grounded in feminism, relational autonomy reimagines individualistic conceptions of self and identity to embrace our essential social and connected nature. Lawyers can enhance end-of-life decision-making to be in alignment with client goals by refocusing it from a solitary experience to one inclusive of the interests and participation of loved ones.