Tanis Doe, PhD -- In Memoriam

Tanis Doe was a Metis woman with a physical disability who was also Deaf and trilingual. Tanis was also a mother to Ann Marie and a cherished friend and sister to many.

Tanis had a PhD in Sociology and was Fulbright Scholar in bioethics at the University of Washington and a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Victoria.

Tanis was also the principal investigator for technology and independence in a five year community-based research project in California -- Community Research for Assistive Technology at the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers (CFILC).

Tanis was a researcher, scholar, writer, sociologist, disability rights activist, speaker, and a wheelchair ballroom dancer.

You can read some of Tanis' writing at this pinpount URL:
http://members.shaw.ca/dewresearch/others.html

Tanis was a mother of a Deaf girl, Ann Marie, whom she adopted, and loved.

Tanis also devoted much of her life advancing the cause of Deaf women (culturally Deaf). She put into practice her deep devotion through her lectured, writing.

She was an activist and theoretical thinker, had outstanding ability in promoting the social political rights of women with disabilities at home and abroad. She had the ability to simplify complex issues so that everyone could understand.

Source: Maria Barile, Montreal -- director with DAWN Canada: DisAbled Women's Network Canada & Action des femmes handicapées de Montréal

Dr. Tanis Doe, a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Victoria.

This article highlights some of Tanis' recent work.

Prenatal testing puts rights of disabled at risk, says professor
By Bev Betkowski

March 5, 2004 – Prenatal testing is a slippery slope that may endanger the rights of disabled people, says a specialist in disability studies.

Dr. Tanis Doe, a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Victoria, shared her concerns in a guest lecture today at the University of Alberta titled 'Murders of Disabled Children & Adults and Prenatal diagnosis: Forms of Modern Eugenics?'

Doe, who is Deaf and uses a wheelchair, said such practices as prenatal testing are in fact a modern-day form of eugenics and therefore a threat to the existence of people with disabilities. "It's not any different than Nazi Germany," she said. "This is not a new form of eugenics, but an old existing form."

New technologies and research into DNA and human genome research strive to eliminate defective genes, but Doe is concerned that will lead to assumptions about "who should die and not die." Prenatal testing allows for detection of any defects of a fetus in the womb, followed by a high rate of termination of the pregnancy, she noted.

In Canada, 89 per cent of people who have a positive diagnosis of fetal disability terminate the pregnancy. The rate in the United States is even higher, at 90 per cent, Doe said.

"The reality is, people with disabilities are seen as dependent and as a burden." Laws in the U.S. now make pre-natal testing mandatory in some states, and lawsuits are being filed against physicians by parents who give birth to a baby with a disability, Doe noted.

She sees only a short step between eliminating a disabled person prenatally and eliminating them outside the womb. "There is a significant connection between devaluing someone prenatally and devaluing life."

There is an unfair double standard, she added, when it is not permissible to screen a fetus for gender, but it is allowable to screen for disabilities. Most disabilities happen after birth, she added.

More distressing though, is the societal precedent being set by parents who kill their disabled children, Doe added. She read out a list of names of children who had died either at the hands of homicidal parents or under suspicious circumstances in group homes.

She then recited the court sentences, which ranged from a 10-year jail sentence suspended to four years, to fines for caregivers. "Reading the list was important to me because I want to make them into people," Doe told her audience.

Society's discomfort with disability often results in "minimal" punishments "because the rest of society can understand why (the parents/caregivers) would want to kill someone with a disability," Doe said.

Many more such deaths go undocumented, she added. "For every child we know who is killed, there are hundreds of deaths that are not labelled homicides, but in which disability was a factor. When they're not called a murder, we don't hear about it."

The deck is stacked against parents who do want to keep their disabled fetus, said Doe, who considers herself pro-choice, but does not support selective pregnancies.

Prevention of disabilities is a caretaking role taken on by society, and the resulting social and economic burdens make it unlikely that a woman has a lot of free choice to knowingly bear a child with disabilities, Doe suggested.

"Women choose not to have a baby with disabilities because they also bear the costs of doing it without society's help. Women are not being given the support they should be given."

Doe wants people to become more aware of the inherent attitudes towards disabilities, and of the dangers associated with those beliefs. "It's not OK to stand back and accept it."

Doe's visit to the U of A was co-hosted by the U of A Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine and by the U of A Disability and Ethics Initiative, and was funded by a grant from Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research.