Medical Disparagement of the Disability Experience: Empirical Evidence for the “Expressivist Objection”

Abstract

Fetal screening and selection (FSS) services offered in the context of prenatal care have been criticized for decades. One important objection has charged that the utilization of FSS expresses disparagement toward the lives, value, and experiences of people with disabilities. Critiques of this expressivist objection to FSS attempt to challenge the interpretability of FSS decisions, or emphasize the importance of autonomy in defending FSS services against concerns about social injustice. The following discussion of sociomedical research demonstrates that FSS practices are too often derivative of inaccurate and disparaging models of disability and disability experience. A disregard for the disability experience and sustained ignorance of disability issues are evident in medical attitudes, practice, education, and research. Thus, critiques of the expressivist objection do not hold up when examined in the context of actual practices.