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Protecting Rights And Building Capacities: Challenges To Global Mental Health Policy In Light Of The Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities, Sheila Wildeman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The World Health Organization (WHO) has in the last decade identified mental health as a priority for global health promotion and international development, to be targeted through promulgation of evidence-based medical practices, health systems reform, and respect for human rights. Yet these overlapping strategies are marked by tensions as the historical primacy of expert-led initiatives is increasingly subject to challenge by new social movements – in particular, disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs). These tensions come into focus upon situating the WHO’s contributions to the analysis of global mental health in light of the negotiation and early stages of implementation of the …

The Form And Substance Of Ethics: Prenatal Diagnosis In The Baird Report, Rachel Ariss

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article analyses the employment of textual tactics in the Final Report of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. The author argues that the Commission uses these tactics to persuade several different audiences that its stance is correct, and simultaneously to manage dissent over new reproductive technologies. Analysis of textual tactics opens the ethical position of the Commission to substantive questioning. The authorfocuses on the Commission's discussion of prenatal diagnosis for genetic anomalies and concludes that the Commission fails to engage with ethical arguments put forward by persons with disabilities and their advocates. The conclusion also encourages the development …

On Not "Getting It", Dianne Pothier

Dianne Pothier Collection

Although there has been increasing awareness regarding equity and access issues in the legal profession, that awareness has tended to miss the multi-faceted nature of the problem. The author discusses how the recognition of one kind of barrier may not assist in the recognition of others. Understanding race or gender does not necessarily imply understanding disability or sexual orientation. Students, faculty and practitioners need to challenge and question their assumptions, to guard against barriers to entry and to really belonging.

Bien qu 'ii y ail une prise de conscience grandissante en ce qui touche /es questions d'egalite et d'acces dans …

Reproductive Technology And Disability: Searching For The "Rights" And Wrongs In Explanation, Judith Mosoff

Dalhousie Law Journal

Several years ago I worked as a lawyer representing psychiatric patients on the grounds of a large medieval-looking turn-of-the-century mental hospital in British Columbia. Soon after starting my new job I met Ann, a woman who shortly after her admission as an involuntary patient had informed her treatment team that she was pregnant. She had always wanted to have a baby. When she told her doctor about her pregnancy, he decided that this idea was part of her delusional system and prescribed anti-psychotic drugs to control her pathology. In fact she was pregnant and the medication given during the first …

Miles To Go: Some Personal Reflections On The Social Construction Of Disability, Dianne Pothier

Dalhousie Law Journal

The "social construction" of disability refers to the way an able bodied conception of disability magnifies its consequences. The social construction of disability assesses and deals with disability from an able bodied perspective. It includes erroneous assumptions about capacity to perform that come from an able bodied frame of reference. It encompasses the failure to make possible or accept different ways of doing things. It reflects a preoccupation with "normalcy" that excludes the disabled person.

Miles To Go: Some Personal Reflections On Social Construction Of Disability, Dianne Pothier

Dianne Pothier Collection

The "social construction" of disability refers to the way an able bodied conception of disability magnifies its consequences. The social construction of disability assesses and deals with disability from an able bodied perspective. It includes erroneous assumptions about capacity to perform that come from an able bodied frame of reference. It encompasses the failure to make possible or accept different ways of doing things. It reflects a preoccupation with "normalcy" that excludes the disabled person.