This latest confirms my impression that transhumanists have an overrepresentation of bottom-feeders and generally sleazy characters. The latest blog posting of George Dvorsky brings even his performance to a new low.
Before I get into the latest post of his, a little history is in order. Dvorsky was the source of the quote about “Ashley X” aka the “Pillow Angel” that became really popular with the defenders of the radical surgical alteration of the young girl. One example of the quote can be found in the following news story:
George Dvorsky, a director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, countered: “If the concern has something to do with the girl’s dignity being violated, then I have to protest by arguing that the girl lacks the cognitive capacity to experience any sense of indignity.
“The estrogen treatment is not what is grotesque here. Rather, it is the prospect of having a full-grown and fertile woman endowed with the mind of a baby.” (emphasis added)
This mantra about matching “mental age” to body size became pretty popular and was even paraphrased by “don’t know squat about developmental disabilities but people will believe me because I’m a TV psychiatrist” Keith Ablow:
It is more appropriate, actually, for her to be in a physical body more the size to kind of match her intellectual abilities, which are so limited and that affords her a higher quality of life.
So what is Dvorky’s latest “contribution” to the “Ashley X” discourse? Unlike people close to Dr. Daniel Gunther, who are struggling to deal with his suicide, Dvorsky’s found a way to exploit the tragedy by throwing out a baseless accusation:
This is particularly upsetting for me, not just because I supported Gunther during the controversy, but because of the possibility that his suicide was wrought by undue pressure exacted on him by overzealous and vocal disability groups. (emphasis added)
As I noted yesterday in this blog, this accusation by Dvorsky would come as news to Gunther’s family who made a specific point of pointing to Gunther’s prolonged struggle with depression as the cause for his suicide – and specifically dismissed the idea that the controversy over “Ashley X” had anything to do with it.
I guess Dvorsky couldn’t resist an attempt to exploit this tragedy in an attempt to smear and possibly silence critics of the so-called “Ashley Treatment.” I guess it would be irresistible if you lack principles and any sense of shame. –Stephen Drake
For the record, I clarified and retracted my position on January 27.
As for your ad hominem attacks on myself and my personal character, that was utterly uncalled for and only works to lessen you and your argument.
Regards,
George Dvorsky
I’m impressed by the level of indignance expressed by someone who threw out the idea that disability activists might have been a cause of someone’s suicide. This idea appears to have been pulled out of a magician’s hat or some kind of fevered imagination. And I notice that your comment makes no apology for that tactic.
As for your “clarification” – count me as less than impressed. It was too late to share with the journalists who blasted your original quote all over the world. Those of us familiar with disabilit saw it for what it was – a comment based in bigotry and ignorance. Unfortunately, there are a lot of ignorant people in the world to whom your “retracted” statement made perfect sense.
A final word – when you made your baseless accusation against disability activists, a response like this was not only called for, but demanded. –Stephen Drake
I have a clarification and retraction. It wasn’t my last word after all.
Interestingly, the message you link to in your comment is very difficult to find on your site.
OTOH, your original commentary from November 6, 2006 (http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/809/) which contains the original quote that was so attractive to the press and the parents of Ashley X – is up front and center under “featured articles.”
That tells me something about the level of concern you have about making sure people know about your “retraction.” –Stephen Drake
George sounds like a classic abuser playing the victim. “How dare you say such awful things about a gift from god like me!”
Strangely enough the last time I say such a fine example it was from a man telling me how much I hurt him by treating a relation with a cognitive disability like a human being.
I shed about as many tears for him as I did for George.
Well Herr Dvorsky, you are to be held up to others as an example. Just not in the way you seem to think.
For some reason, a poster named “Marsha” couldn’t get her comment through on this topic. She emailed me and asked me to post it for her, so here it is:
My condolences to Dr. Gunther’s family and friends – it is always hard to lose someone you love and value. But to lay the doctor’s suicide at any door other than his own, and his own challenges with depression, is not only a grievous error, it is a simplistic rationale that disrespects the demons that Dr. Gunther likely lived with for a good long time. He deserves better than to have you strip his locus of control from him and invest it in other nameless people you would like to blame because that may be easier than wondering why you didn’t see the tragedy coming and whether or not there could have been anything you could have done to forestall it. I hope you come to understand that neither you nor any group could do something to save Dr. Gunther if he was so irretrievably determined not to be saved. It is sad for everyone. –Marsha
I think it diminishes us all when someone feels compelled to take their own life. We are further diminished, as is Gunther himself, by the media’s depiction of him as simply the person who stunted the growth of ashley. It is one thing to be critical of the ashley “treatment” and also Gunther’s role in, and another to reduce his life and his achievements to simply this. As I understand it, the entire ethics committee in its deliberations at the time were deeply divided and uncertain about whether to proceed with the treatment and unsure about its ethical implications. Reading between the lines, it seems clear that this uncertainty never left Gunther. He remained deeply disturbed by it, and it is difficult to believe that it did not further fuel his depression. This is the tragedy of Dr Diekema’s depiction of Gunther as one who unwavered in his support of the ashley treatment. In reality, Gunther did waver. He was uncertain and anguished, and in this sense, Gunther’s death, too, is a casuality of the ashley treatment.
Just FYI: I’m a transhumanist but that doesn’t mean I agree with George or anyone else similarly identified on disability issues. (George knows this, we’ve had a few interesting e-mail debates). See this article I wrote last year. I think that in the general population there’s a serious lack of knowledge and understanding with regard to disability rights, etc. — ignorance isn’t the exclusive province of any subculture or group.
And because it’s so widespread, disability activism must continue to emphasize and champion the value of all kinds of people (as well as the need to accord respect and bodily autonomy to all kinds of people) even if it feels like we’re repeating ourselves at times.
Anne,
I did indeed read your article from last year and thought it made excellent points, although you appear to have missed at least some of NDY’s advocacy regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia. From the very beginning, we’ve said that if “assistance” in dying was really about autonomy, it would be offered to all comers, not just old, ill and disabled people.
I hope your article made some kind of impact. So far, I have failed to see any evidence of it from two of the most prominent spokespersons of the transhumanist movement (although usually unidentified as such) during the “Ashley X” debate – Hughes and Dvorsky.
Thanks for reading and commenting. –Stephen
Hi Stephen,
You said: From the very beginning, we’ve said that if “assistance” in dying was really about autonomy, it would be offered to all comers, not just old, ill and disabled people
Thanks for clarifying that point. I do agree with it. I suspect that most people tend to restrict the “offering” of euthanasia to those whom they perceive as being in positions they themselves find scary or aesthetically displeasing. Which of course is discriminatory (and ignorant, but those two go hand in hand more often than not).
Anne,
Thanks. It’s a point many people seem to miss about us. It puzzles me, since it was front and center on our main page for years – and was a statement made in a supreme court brief we filed in 1996. Last January, I participated in a very unproductive get-together of ethicists (no followup or follow-through) and disability advocates. An ethicist regarded as being an “expert” in disability issues completely misrepresented NDY’s positions. I think I came across as rude for pointing it out.
I’m hoping this blog will help to clarify who we are and what we stand for over time, as we cover more topics and draw more writers in. –Stephen