Reflections on Personhood: Girls with Severe Disabilities and the Law
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v2i3.101Keywords:
Girls, Disabilities, Rights, Personhood, Child, MetaphysicalAbstract
Through a series of reflections employing a legal lens this paper explores the circumscription of the personhood of girls living with severe disabilities. Ideas from the work of Australian legal theorist Ngaire Naffine on the doctrine of the legal person are drawn from and applied to extracts from court documents in Canada and beyond. The at-times contested personhood and evident attempts to un-personify girls with disabilities are reflected upon through the consideration of a series of experiences. These include concerning medical decision making, the acquisition of civil disabilities, the way in which girls with disabilities are valued or not valued and the forms of violence that are perpetrated against them in the troubling area where childhood meets with severe disability and female sex. Reflections include the consideration of the cases of Leilani Muir, Tracy Latimer and other girls whose matters came before decision makers to have legal rights determined.
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