Tracy Latimer is dead because her father is a murderer

[pandaseal]

It’s always hard for me to write a post about Tracy Latimer’s murder, especially in a space that’s got a lot more traffic than my own blog does. Where do I start? How do I express to a new audience the significance this case has in Canada, and how the murder of a 12 year old girl by her father 17 years ago changed drastically how Canadians

Comments

[brecho]

Whenever I talk about this case, I feel the need to remind the reader: this is a means of killing we have made illegal when killing dogs, because it is considered to be so painful. This is the murder people would like you to believe is a “mercy killing”.
Exactly.

[pandaseal]

The gassing in the car always brings to mind the Nazi T4 program that invovled gasses people with disabilities in vans. It was what gave them th idea that gas wold be great in the camps.

[magicalsibylle]

Funny how that rings a bell:

Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, to the end that patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment [menschlichem Ermessen] of their state of health, can be granted a mercy death [Gnadentod].

That's the Nazi decree.

Mercy killing can sometimes be honourable

That's an article about Tracy's murder.

[pandaseal]

Yeah, I am unsurprised. I'm pretty sure most people don't see many PWD as human.

[mybluesunset]

This is so unspeakably horrific. I was originally collecting quotes from the article of the most horrifying parts but then I got to the list of other murders and realized that I was going to end up quoting the whole damn article.

[magicalsibylle]

I think a lot of people get things mixed up: I was reading the comments on an article related to a similar case recently (it's never a good idea to read the comments), an article whose title highlighted that the victim was disabled (why the need I don't even know). A lot of the comments seemed to come from people who believe it was assisted suicide. It made me feel good that so many seemed to be in favour of assisted suicide (something I'm also in favour of) but they were completely mixed up. Hello, that's murder. They didn't ask to be helped to end their lives, someone ended their lives for them. So yeah, but no. Like, at all.

[pack1ife]

Though I wouldn't be surprised if these same people turned around and thought "assisted suicide" was wrong if the person is cognitively functioning enough to consent.

They keep using that word. I don't think it means what they think it means.

[lisaquestions]

I'm really dubious about assisted suicide as much of the activism itself is centered around fairly ableist concepts of when a life is or is not worth living.

That and I don't think that the people reading the article were confused, I think they really do see this sort of thing as assisted suicide.

[magicalsibylle]

the activism itself is centered around fairly ableist concepts of when a life is or is not worth living.
That's a really good point. A friend of mine who's disabled is fairly active and has become more so since a friend of hers died through assisted suicide and the mother is facing a jail sentence but I suspect she's in the minority and most of the activism has to do with what you point out, that's very true.

[pack1ife]

Ah yeah, I saw that on FWD too and it (along with the article about the essay contest) struck out at me the most.

Thank you for posting. I just can't believe this even needs debate. I have known so many people with CP who have gone on to live fairly normal lives and that people, their parents even, don't seem to recognize this...is just disturbing.

But then I read Stuck in Neutral in High School in my spare time (I was a weird kid...but then the title, and way it was tagged with the lines "...I think my father is trying to kill me" was the hook that got me), and it, as well as knowing people with CP and other disabilities, probably did a bit to open my eyes a bit more than these people were able to. Because the author writes him as "just a normal 14 year old boy." Everyone should read it. It's not long or difficult to understand

[magicalsibylle]

"...I think my father is trying to kill me"
God that's terrible. Thanks for the rec (BTW if a mod sees this, would it be possible to extend the Goodreads account to include recs that have to do with more than feminism? We talk about a lot of interesting things here and this for example would be interesting to add to the shelf, I think)

[pandaseal]

I loved Stuck in Neutral when I read it. I'm sure there's all kinds of problematic things in it, but now I really want to do a rereading.

[maenads_dance]

Oh my god, I remember that book. I read that in the sixth grade, I think I kind of blocked it out.

[politicette]

I don't know if we've ever interacted before but whatever, I ♥ you and your disability posts on this comm.

[magicalsibylle]

I second that.

[pandaseal]

Oh, thank you. I just do a lot of reading becuase I'm not big on leaving the house, so I figure I might as well get my activism on in any way I can.