• Alecia Simmonds

06 February 2010We need to stop rejecting human difference at the border, writes Alecia Simmonds in the National Times

IN 1914 a group of prominent eugenicists in America declared: ''The feeble-minded person is not desirable, he is a social encumbrance, a financial burden. In short, it were better for him and for society had he never been born.''

Early 20th-century eugenicists loved the term feeble-minded. It referred to those with intellectual or physical impairments and was flexible enough to cover the poor, blacks and prostitutes. The feeble-minded were a social encumbrance, a financial burden and a frightful deviation from physical and intellectual ideals. The term has since lost currency and the science of eugenics rose and fell with the Third Reich. But the ideas still thrive today.

A Senate committee inquiry into the migration treatment of disability in Australia is revealing that Australia systematically discriminates against people with impairments. The committee, which has been holding public hearings in capital cities and will continue to do so throughout the month, is assessing the appropriateness of health tests for people wanting to migrate to Australia...

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