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No longer wanted: are some types
ISSN 0951-9815 of people being screened out?
Volume 33, no 1, autumn 2019
Published by his issue tells the story of Ivy Angerer, a young woman with learning disabilities
CL Initiatives Ltd
No 6 The Square born in Scotland to German/Austrian parents who died aged 29 in 1940, a
Waterhouse Green Tvictim of the Nazi killing programme against disabled people (page 18). Her
Whittle-le-Woods, Chorley story is first and foremost a human story about the terrible tragedy that can unfurl
Lancashire PR6 7LF
Tel 0125 727 0430 when people with learning disabilities are seen as less than human.
It is also a tribute to two incredibly intrepid and dogged researchers, Helen Atherton
Subscription enquiries and Florian Schwanninger, who for five years pursued the story of what happened to
Rosemary Trustam
Tel 0125 727 0430 Ivy Angerer to enable her to have a name, a face and a life, rather than be consigned to
rosecli@btinternet.com the nameless oblivion that Nazism wished upon her.
CL Initiatives Ltd At the end of their article, Atherton and Schwanninger draw links to some current
(address as above)
practices that reflect attitudes to the most vulnerable today, including antenatal
Editor screening for Down syndrome. Are we, too, trying to eliminate certain types of human
Simon Jarrett being from our world? Do the eugenic doctrines that underpinned, in their most
simonj@jarr.demon.co.uk
extreme form, fascist ideology still linger more subtly in our thinking today?
Production editor and designer Actor Sally Phillips, who is the mother of a child with Down syndrome, is prominent
Christy Lawrance in the debate about
www.clcomms.com
antenatal screening, and
Social media editor has argued that screening “ The information given alongside
Rosemary Trustam is not about eliminating a
t @CommLivingmag antenatal tests should be accurate and
f www.facebook.com/ disease, but about
CommunityLivingMagazine removing a certain type of balanced, and not predicated on the
human. She has
Research belief that children with disabilities
Julie Ridley acknowledged it is a
Reader in social policy and practice, University complex ethical issue need to be prevented
of Central Lancashire where the right of a certain ”
Photographer type of human to exist can
Seán Kelly clash with the right of a woman to make choices about her own body.
www.seankellyphotos.com The information given alongside antenatal tests should be accurate and balanced, she
Cartoonist/illustrator argues, not predicated on the belief that children with disabilities and those with Down
Robin Meader syndrome are a bad thing for the world and need to be prevented.
robinmeaderartist@gmail.com No one is saying that those who advocate antenatal screening for doing away with
Legal correspondent Down syndrome are equivalent to Nazi ideologues who carried out the deliberate,
Belinda Schwehr LLM systematic murder of people with disabilities 80 years ago. Or, at least, no one should
Legal framework trainer and consultant be saying that.
Care and Health Law
belinda@careandhealthlaw.com But we must ask what lies beneath people’s thinking when they advocate mass
antenatal screening or unthinkingly apply “do not attempt resuscitation” notices to
Publisher hospital patients with learning disabilities. If at heart they believe that there should be
Rosemary Trustam
rosecli@btinternet.com no place in the world for people with disabilities, then their thinking is all the more
dangerous for its subtlety and invisibility.
Editorial Board
Jo Clare, CEO, Three Cs
Noelle Blackman, CEO, Respond Great stories or ‘inspiration porn’?
Jo Adshead, CEO, Linkability A recent controversy on Facebook involved an accusation by a disability activist of
Sue Pemberton, CEO, Integrate “inspiration porn” against somebody who had posted a video of a young man with
Jane Lloyd and Debbie Forde, senior lecturers,
School of Social Work, University of Central autism playing Bohemian Rhapsody on the piano. This was a previously unknown
Lancashire phrase to your editor – and it caused an outbreak of serious reflection and self-
Helen Atherton, lecturer in nursing, University examination.
of Leeds
Sally Warren, MD, Paradigm We often carry stories of people with learning disabilities who have had great
Rosemary Trustam achievements or proved to be exceptional human beings in some way. This issue
Gill Levy features an interview with Greg Silvester, an Olympian gymnast and sports coach
Gabby Machell, CEO, and Mandy Crowford,
director of services, Westminster Society (page 16), as well as the stories of Francesca Goff and Harley Jolly, two young people
Isabelle Garnett with Down syndrome who addressed the United Nations (page 13).
Simon Jarrett Readers should be assured that when we carry such stories it is not, as the activist put
Printed by it, our intention to be “heart-warming … to make neurotypical people go all glowy inside
Character Graphics, Taunton, and say ‘aww aren’t they sweet!’ ” – it is to draw attention to the work that certain
Tel 01823 279008 exceptional people are doing, and to redress the imbalance in a society that too often
© CL Initiatives Ltd 2019 frames people as passive and incapacitated, worthy of pity but not of respect.
Registered charity no 1141176
Company no 7530680 Simon Jarrett
Editor
www.cl-initiatives.co.uk Community Living Vol 33 No 1 | Autumn 2019 3
