[Last Name] 1
Leah Larson
Dr. Crystal Veronie
ENG 102
2 February 2023
The Word “Crip”
The word “crip” has undergone a metamorphosis in recent years, changing from what an
abled person would derogatorily call a disabled person, to what a disabled person could use to
describe another disabled person, or even themselves. “Crip” has been used as an offensive term,
and like other slurs, has a complex history of disenfranchisement, prejudice, and now
companionship. In recent times, the word “crip,” as with many other once-derogatory words,
now serve as a sign of camaraderie between the community. Alison Kafer, author of Feminist,
Queer, Crip, Quotes Carrie Sandhal, stating “cripple, like queer, is fluid and ever-changing,
claimed by those it did not originally define” (15). The beginnings of the word crip will never
change, but in most respects, the definition has. While the word crip has had negative
connotations in the past, by using it to create community, the word “crip” can become a strong
link between all disabled persons, representing community a protest of mainstream society, and a
shared experience between all disabled people.
Slurs are a staple part of language, with every culture having slurs for the sole reason to
persecute people of different social standings. Robin Jeshion’s article, “Slur Creation”, states,
“Speakers who use slurring terms convey that targets are inferior persons qua persons by virtue
of the semantics: in sincerely using a slur with full understanding, speakers express their
contempt for the targets, an affective attitude that the target ranks low in worth as a person”
(134). Slurs are primarily used to establish dominance or express distaste for a group of people
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that deviate from the norm, with disabled people being given the slur “crip.” Keywords for
Disability Studies edited by Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss, and David Serlin includes Victoria
Ann Lewis’s study on the creation of the slur “crip”, from its journey as a synonym for begging
to it becoming a word to define disabled people (Lewis). The word crip in association with
disabled people did not come about until the 1970s when with the emergence of the push for
disabled rights, came the new definition (Lewis). The word “crip” was used primarily as
derogatory when talked about in relation to disabled people, giving the word “crip” a negative
connotation that invokes discomfort from others when hearing or saying it (Lewis).
Reclamation efforts began in the early 1980s, mostly through the form of literature. Works
like Crip Theory, Criptionary: Disability Humor and Satire, and Feminist, Queer, Crip, all use
the term “crip” to attract attention, fight the status quo, and create a kinship between them and
other disabled people. By using the provocative term, to describe their book, and by extension,
themselves, early disability scholars were creating a form of identity that stemmed from being a
“crip.” They created the idea of pride in oneself by expressing pride in being a “crip,” making
being disabled less about being pitied and more about being a person that accepts their disability
and acknowledges its effects on their life but is not defined by it (Kafer 12).
“Crip” can be used universally, including many disabilities within the term. “Crip” can
extend to the deaf, blind, non-walking, non-verbal, mentally impaired, and more, uniting
disabled people under one term. In a society where the value of a person is equal to their value of
work, many disabled people do not take pride in who they are. The inclusivity of the word “crip”
creates camaraderie among the disabled, creating a community of people who are separate from
the majority and take pride in being so. Zuzanna Jusinka, author of “Slur Reclamation”, states
“In short, to use these paradigmatic examples , reclaiming “queer” expresses pride in being not-
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cisgender/not-heterosexual and presents this word to cisgender, heterosexual people as an
appropriate way of referring to not-cisgender/not-heterosexual people” (690). The word “crip”
(much like the word “queer”) creates a sense of pride in being the minority, showing self-worth
that is associated with not being abled. While having the word “crip” serve as an umbrella for all
disabilities can undermine individual experiences, it can also unite disabled people in a way that
is much akin to other minority communities, such as LGBTQ+, Jewish people, and African
Americans.
The use of “crip” by disabled people has been seen in lots of popular cultures, books,
movies, and interviews. Disabled lawyer and equal rights activist, Harriet Mcbride Johnson
commonly referred to herself as “crip” in her books and in conversation. An interview conducted
by Jennifer Warner Coop for the Hartford Courant stated, “She refers to herself regularly as a
crip, to disabled friends as crips, and to the culture of “cripdom”” (Cooper). Johnson used “crip”
in this connotation to link disabled people together, even coining the term “cripdom,” which
shows the community between her and other disabled people. When asked about her use of the
word crip, Johnson says, "I sometimes get myself into trouble with my use of the word. Of
course, it is not appropriate language in most contexts. It's pejorative, but it's a type of street
slang that we use with each other” (Cooper). Johnson’s use of provocative language helped to
establish a disabled community through the word because it served to give disabled people a
voice in their condition. The word “crip” had been heavily established as a slur and mostly used
by abled people, meaning that to say it, Johnson was breaking boundaries, creating a new
meaning of the word that disabled people got to define. Johnson helped create a term that is used
by disabled rights activists in places as important as the title of their autobiography, or in places
as insignificant as their Instagram bio.
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The reclamation of the word “crip” is important because it creates a sense of community,
and community creates change. Alison Kafer the author of Feminist, Queer, Crip, states,
“Thinking through this collective “we”, this forging of crip communities, means accounting for
those who do “have” illnesses or impairments, and who might be recognized by others as part of
this ‘disabled we’” (Kafer 13), meaning that by thinking of herself and other disabled people as a
group, she and other people have more power to create change. A prime example of this
phenomenon is Camp Jened (more popularly known as Crip Camp), a camp for disabled
children. A film that became the winner of the 2020 Sundance Festival, Camp Jened was
described as a “[Disabled child’s] freewheeling Utopia, a place with summertime sports,
smoking, and make-out sessions awaiting everyone, and campers experienced liberation and full
inclusion as human beings” (Newnham). Camp Jened, beyond being revolutionary, taught its
campers that they were part of a community. Many campers from Camp Jened went on to
become disability rights activists because Camp Jened taught them that they were part of society
and deserved equal treatment, despite their disabilities. The reclamation of the word “crip” has
the same effect Camp Jened had; uniting disabled people and creating the kinship and
camaraderie involved in the creation of community.
The film Crip Camp shows how representation created by the group being represented
creates a more accurate, poignant, and genuine link to the community. Jim Lebrecht, filmmaker,
activist, and Crip Camp alumni, codirected Crip Camp along with Nicole Newnham and Sara
Bolder, two other important disabled rights activists. In an interview with Jennifer Fischer,
Lebrecht expresses his thoughts about the importance of this type of representation, saying “The
thing that is authentic and what makes it so good is that instead of someone else observing us
[disabled individuals] as a community, [in the film] you heard the true thoughts and words of
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people with disabilities. That doesn’t happen very often” (Fischer). Lebrecht is expressing how
representation is often deferred to people outside the community, with an example being how
education concerning Native Americans are often through sources that are not by Native
Americans (Fischer). The importance of true representation ties back to the reclamation of the
word “crip” because it shows how representation, when achieved by a person of the represented
community, serves to create a more genuine tie to the represented group. An abled person using
the term “crip” only serves to reaffirm the ableist definition because the term is being used by
someone who does not represent the community. A disabled person using the word “crip” is a
symbol of comradery and reclamation because it is a true representation, tying the community
together through a shared experience.
Another slur that has undergone a reclamation in modern culture is the word queer. Much
like crip, queer has become a major umbrella term when describing the LGBTQ+ community,
with queer meaning many different genders and sexual identities, such as non-binary, asexual,
and genderqueer, which has become a synonym for gender fluidity. Both crip and queer are
reclaimed derogatory terms with many similarities, with the two, often going together in
literature. In Feminist, Queer, Crip, Alison Kafer states “to examine how terms such as
“defective,” “deviant,” and “sick” have been used to justify discrimination against people whose
bodies, minds, desires, and practices differ from the unmarked norm; to speculate how norms of
gendered behavior- proper masculinity and femininity- are based on nondisabled bodies: and to
map potential points of connection among, and departure between, queer (and) disability
activists” (Kafer 17). Kafer says this because, for both the queer and crip communities, there is a
focus on “fixing,” “or changing” from the mainstream onto these communities. The reclamation
of both these words at around the same time shows how closely interconnected the queer and
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crip communities are, showing the common experiences and challenges both communities must
go through because of mainstream society.
The use of “crip” in common language has been changed forever. What once was a
derogatory term is now a way of building community and camaraderie among a group. “Crip” is
not the only term that is undergoing this change. Words like “queer,” the f-slur, and the n-slur are
also changing the way the word is interpreted, building a stronger community among minorities.
“Crip” is a term that describes someone without taking over their whole person, linking them
with others in the same situation while also leaving room for the individuality of each person.
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Works Cited
Adams, Rachel, Benjamin Reiss, David Serlin. Keywords for Disability Studies. New York
University Press, 2015.
Cooper, Jennifer Warner. “Why She Calls Herself a 'Crip'; An Outspoken, Sometimes Brash
Advocate Wants Opportunity, Not Pity, For Disabled.” The Hartford Courant, 2006.
Fischer, Jennifer. “Interview with Crip Camp Documentary Filmmaker Jim Lebrecht.” Video
Librarian â Film & Documentary Reviews for Collection Development. Video Librarian,
October 28, 2021. https://videolibrarian.com/articles/interviews/jim-lebrecht-interview/.
Lewis, Victoria, Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss, and David Serlin. Essay. In Keywords for
Disability Studies, 46–48. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2015.
Jeshion, Robin. “Slur Creation, Bigotry Formation: The Power of Expressivism. Phenomenology
and Mind, no. 11, University of Southern California, 2016,
https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/pam/article/view/7250/7230.
Jusińska, Zuzanna. “Slur Reclamation – Polysemy, Echo, or Both?” Organon F, vol. 28, no. 3,
2021, pp. 689–707., https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28310.
Kafer, Alison. Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana University Press, 2013.
Newnham, Nicole, and Jim LeBrecht. “A Disability Revolution.” Crip Camp, Sarah Bolder,
2020, https://cripcamp.com/.
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Leah Larson
Dr. Crystal Veronie
ENG 102
10 April 2023
Discrimination in the Womb
Abortion rights, laws, and protections are under constant debate in the
United States,
ranging from the overturn of Roe V. Wade nationwide to individual states and
their laws on abortion. Arguments surrounding abortion often leave out how
disability is a major factor in choosing an abortion, especially in the scope of
healthcare. Abortions concerning disability can be undergone without
discriminating against disabled people (such as ending a pregnancy that
may put a mother at risk or terminating a fetus that has anencephaly) but
terminating a fetus on the grounds of disability alone enforces ableist
principles by promoting the idea that a disabled fetus is worth less. The idea
of a ‘replaceable fetus’ or ‘trying for a better one’ after aborting a disabled
fetus shows society’s attitude and ideas toward disabled people, ideas that
stem from ableist principles. Ableism resides in every aspect of modern
society, and now, with the rise of prenatal screening, is also represented in
the field of reproduction. Ableism is apparent in the workforce, philosophy,
and even healthcare, with an example being that healthcare providers are
more likely to emphasize the negative effects of Down syndrome to
persuade parents to terminate after an anomaly is identified through genetic
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testing (Manninen). This promotes discrimination because abortion based
solely on the probability of the fetus's disability happens because the
healthcare system takes away value possessed by all, regardless of ability.
Abortion based solely on fetus disability is promoted by healthcare
professionals and further training should be undergone to separate ableist
ideas from healthcare.
Disabled fetuses are aborted on a larger scale than abled fetuses
because of the dehumanization of disabled people in healthcare. This
phenomenon is observed by Manninen Bertha Alvarez in her article “The
Replaceable Fetus: A Reflection on Abortion and Disability”, which focuses on
the experience of women giving birth to fetuses with a high probability of
disability and how the perception of a fetus can change after a diagnosis,
Manninen states, "Fetuses that are wanted are called 'babies.' Prenatal
screening results can turn a 'wanted baby' into an 'unwanted fetus'" (n.p.).
Manninen shows how the language used by medical staff, friends, and family
serves to dehumanize fetuses. The change of word choice from “baby” to
“fetus” illustrates that the fetus is now less human and therefore, less
desired. Manninen also observes the change from fetus back to baby after
the disability diagnosis by acknowledging, “Subsequent diagnostic tests
revealed Madison did not have Down syndrome after all. Everyone afterward
was relieved and happy, and, predictably, Madison reverted to being a
beloved fetus/baby with moral worth” (n.p.). Madison’s transformation "back
to human” in the eyes of society shows the healthcare double standard
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because the only difference between the fetus before and after subsequent
diagnosis was that the fetus was no longer disabled, showing that disabled
people are not seen as beings with human worth.
Healthcare echoes these ableist ideals through their treatment of
disabled people and disabled fetuses. The mistreatment of disabled people in
healthcare is apparent through many different forms of disabled literature. A
prominent piece by Jen Deerinwater titled, “The Erasure of Indigenous People
in Chronic Illness” talks about the treatment of disabled people in healthcare,
along with the intersectionality of disability and race. Deerinwater gives
anecdotes about hir treatment in healthcare and how she has been affected
from it. Deerinwater gives an example of the ablism and racism she faces,
stating, “A white nurse even repeatedly broke the doctor’s orders, denied me
pain medication, and stated, “That’s ridiculous. You don’t need this and I’m
not giving this to you.” I now take anxiety medication before most medical
appointments, and I’ve cancelled appointments when I can’t manage
anticipating the abuse I’ll possibly face” (48). Deerinwaters, along with many
other disabled people’s experiences, show how healthcare treats disabled
people as subhuman pushing the narrative that disabled people are worth
less than others.
The idea that disabled fetuses are less important or desired in society
stems from the capitalistic idea that a person who cannot work does not
have value. With the rise of the industrial revolution in Britain and the United
States, work became less personalized and more taxing, with longer days
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and harder labor. This pushed disabled labor into a subcategory of labor,
where a disabled person could be paid less. As the general public’s idea of a
valuable citizen changed to a working person, disabled people were cast
further from society. In Capitalism & Disability, Marta Russell and Keith
Rosenthal focus on why disabled people were pushed out of the workforce.
Russel and Rosenthal propose, “Because the material basis of capitalist
accumulation is the mining of surplus labor for the workforce, the owners
and managers of the businesses necessarily have to discriminate against
those workers whose impairments add to the cost of production” (n.p.). This
illustrates that capitalism favors the cheapest and fastest means of
production, and impairments and disabilities that may inhibit this process are
not desired. The prevalent discrimination and ideals of the workforce
eventually spilled over into society, giving rise to anti-disabled rhetoric,
demonstrated in the quote, “The body was a machine; to the industrialists,
individuals’ bodies were valued for their ability to function like machines”
(Russell), which shows how ableist ideas eject disabled people from the
capitalistic system, and by extension, from society. This creates a prejudice
against disabled fetuses because the fetuses cannot adhere to society’s
values, and therefore, lose their value as human beings. Aware of society’s
influence on their morals or not, people make decisions about disabled
fetuses based on the principles of earlier times that still hold strong today.
The appearance of eugenics and eugenics ideas in higher education
cause a trickle down into healthcare, making proponents of the abortion of
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disabled fetuses in institutions highly influential. Peter Singer, a moral
philosopher, represents many capitalistic and ableist principles, such as that
being unable to work physically makes someone a burden on society, and
that a disabled person cannot have a high quality of life. Singer argues for
the abortion of physically and mentally disabled fetuses based on the sole
principle that disabled people are not people. Singer’s views are dangerous
because of his status. As one of the most prominent ethicists of the 21 st
century and a professor at Princeton, Singer‘s claims have a true weight
behind them, inspiring the next generation of educated workers, writers, and
citizens. In an interview done by Viktor Frolke about Singer and his
philosophies, Frolke asked Singer what he would do if his child was
diagnosed with down-syndrome, Singer stated, “If [the fetus] had a blockage
of the intestines, which is a common complication, I would have refused
permission for the operation” (n.p.). The blockage of the intestines in the
child with down-syndrome is possible and common, but the condition is
easily diagnosed, and the surgery is simple (Scotko). In this hypothetical,
Singer is actively discriminating against a disabled child because he assumes
that the blockage of the intestines (an easily fixed issue) will severely inhibit
the child’s life. In another quote from Singer, he states, “Maybe the life of a
disabled person is much more worth living than mine... I can imagine that
parents of a newborn that is paralyzed, that's always going to be in a
wheelchair, might decide that they don't want that child and that they are
going to have another one” (n.p.). These quotes from Singer, highlighting his
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attitudes and ideas toward disabled people, influence healthcare. By
promoting that disabled people are worth less, Singer is indirectly showing
society that the eradication of disabled fetuses at birth is a positive. “To
Singer, it’s pretty simple. Disability makes a person ‘worse off’” (10).
Through his actions, beliefs, and statements about disability and eugenics,
Singer promotes the abortion of disabled fetuses takes personhood away
from disabled people.
The idea of aborting fetuses strictly on the concept of disability invokes
the problematic principles and movement of eugenics, practices still seen in
healthcare today. A major unspoken example of modern eugenics is the
mass abortion of fetuses with down syndrome. Jessica Wakeman studied this
phenomenon for Healthline, stating “In the United States each year, more
than 6,000 babies with Down syndrome are born, according to the National
Down Syndrome Society. However, almost none are born in Iceland. That’s
because nearly 100 percent of women in Iceland who receive a positive test
for Down syndrome choose to terminate the pregnancy” (n.p.). The mass
abortion of fetuses with down syndrome shows how ideals of eugenics (such
as ableism) negatively affect disabled fetuses. Wakeman also talked about
how healthcare plays a direct role in this number, stating, “Parents-to-be are
not being properly informed by healthcare professionals about what life with
a child with Down syndrome could be like. “Women — even in the United
States of America — are not receiving accurate, up-to-date information about
Down syndrome from their healthcare providers — a vital issue we have
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advocated for, for many, many decades,” (n.p.). Healthcare providers, by
following ableist ideas, unknowingly promote the abortion of disabled fetuses
because of factors that most people don’t think about, like language and
attitude about the fetus. By promoting the abortion of disabled fetuses,
healthcare providers are evoking eugenic principles that serve to further
separate disabled people from society.
Disabled people want and advocate for better treatment in healthcare.
Disabled people often face discrimination in healthcare, along with having to
put up with staff that often doesn’t understand the needs of their condition
and being denied quality care. Andres Gallagos, a chairman on the National
Council on Disability, talked about this in a letter urging for change in this
regard, stating, “Medical schools do not provide meaningful education in
treating patients with disabilities and thus graduates enter residency and
fellowship programs with little or no skills, knowledge, comfort, confidence,
or awareness in their proper treatment. These deficits are reflected in
adverse clinical outcomes” (n.p.). Gallagos is talking about how healthcare
doesn’t include disability in the curriculum, even though disability is a huge
facet of healthcare. By ignoring disability completely in the curriculum,
healthcare is failing disabled people, and pushing the narrative that they are
sub-human. Gallagos also urged for the Accreditation Council for Graduate
Medical Education to update their curriculum to include disabled people,
stating, “In this regard, NCD urges ACGME to require all of its accredited
residency and fellowship programs adopt and implement disability cultural
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competency training to ensure that physicians are prepared to meet the
health needs of people with disabilities. We recommend that such training
incorporate the Core Competencies on Disability for Health Care Education drafted by
the Alliance for Disability in Health Care Education” (n.p.). This shows how
disabled people want a change in healthcare to give visibility to disability,
instead of keeping it as a clandestine topic. While it hasn’t happened yet, if
healthcare would give more education, training, and support in the realm of
disability there would be far less dehumanizing of disabled people in
healthcare.
Aborting fetuses on the pretense of disability should not be promoted
by healthcare professionals because, despite unjust societal norms, ideas,
and ideals, disabled people are people, and therefore, have intrinsic worth as
humans. Arguments against preserving the lives of fetuses deemed
potentially impaired, include those that claim impaired infants may
experience a lower quality of life and less opportunities to achieve
happiness; however, such claims that impaired fetuses should be eliminated
through abortion remain problematic. Multitudes of studies have shown that
people with disabilities report a high quality of life. For some fetuses with
severe disabilities that would cause extreme pain and danger to the mother,
abortion is the best choice, and this idea is completely appropriate for a
healthcare worker to suggest. Healthcare workers should not coerce mothers
into aborting a child that can have a happy, productive, and fulfilling
lifespan, but is not desired because they are seen as less than their non-
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disabled counterparts. By undergoing training, healthcare professionals can
learn to separate ableist and eugenic ideals from healthcare, allowing for a
better quality of care for both disabled and non-disabled people. Abortion of
disabled fetuses based on ideas that a disabled life is worth less than a non-
disabled one is wrong because it dehumanizes disabled people based on
ableist societal morals, changes the worth of a human being, and creates a
system that will continue to discriminate against disabled people, alive and
in the womb.
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Works Cited
Bickenbach, Jerome. Disability and the Good Human Life. Cambridge University
Press, 2015.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, September 15). Disability
and health information for healthcare providers. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/hcp.html
Frolke, Viktor. “‘Professor Death.’” Salon. Salon.com, September 25, 2011.
https://www.salon.com/2001/06/25/singer_2/.
Gallagos, A. (2021, July 16). NCD letter to the ACGME regarding disability competency
training of Medical Professionals. NCD.gov. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from
https://www.ncd.gov/publications/2021/ncd-letter-acgme-regarding-
disability-competency- training-medical-professionals
Gartley, Cheryle B. “Harriet McBryde Johnson.” The Simon Foundation for
Continence, The Simon Foundation, 11 Jan. 2017,
https://simonfoundation.org/harriet-mcbryde-johnson/.
Herzog, Dagmar. Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-
Nazi Europe. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2020.
Manninen, Bertha Alvarez. “The Replaceable Fetus: A Reflection on Abortion
and Disability.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 1, 2015,
https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v35i1.3239.
Russell, Marta, and Keith Rosenthal. Capitalism & Disability: Selected Writings by
Marta Russell. Haymarket Books, 2019.
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Scotko, Brian. Gastrointestinal System and Down Syndrome. National Down
Syndrome Society (NDSS), 2023.
https://ndss.org/resources/gastrointestinal-tract-syndrome.
Wakeman, J. (2018, December 6). Abortion and down syndrome. Healthline.
Retrieved May 1, 2023, from
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/the-debate-over-terminating-
down- syndrome-pregnancies#Eradicating-Down-syndrome-
Wong, Alice. Disability Visibility: Twenty-First Century Disabled Voices. Vintage Books,
a Division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2020.
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Leah Larson
Dr. Crystal Veronie
ENG 102
5 May 2023
Reflection on English 102
English 102 is a class that challenged me in so many difference ways,
starting the first day, when I was told the focus of the class would be on
disability. I had never thought about disability in an academic context, with
the only real link I had to disability being teaching a woman with down-
syndrome to swim a summer ago. I was worried about using the wrong
language, coming across as insensitive, or even worse, coming off as
completely offensive. Reading disability literature allowed me to have a link
to the disabled community, feel more confident about writing about
disability, and at times, even finding links between disability writings and my
own personal experiences. English 102 helped me find an area of study that I
had thought very little of before yet had so much to learn from. Picking up
disability studies has shown me the many facets of disability, ranging from
the physical disadvantages of the body to the disadvantages created and
enforced by society in a person’s life. By putting disability in the context of
literature, I was able to learn so much about literature, disability, and how
these things tie back to my life and experiences in ways I had never thought
of before. English 102 has taught me to engage in disabled texts, rethink
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topics, and address opposing academic arguments, all serving to make me a
better writer and a better ally for disabled people.
Through engaging in disabled texts, I can truly understand the
complexities of the disability thought, rights, and challenges in a society that
tries to pretend disability doesn’t exist. Growing up, the rhetoric was clear: if
you did not work, you had no worth. I threw myself into this idea, constantly
pushing myself for better in everything, and sometimes suffering the
consequences of it. Academic burnout from school, muscle overuse from
sports, and very limited free time because I was constantly doing something.
I kept this mindset, and to a degree, looked down on those who did not work
as hard as me. Reading Ellen Samuel’s “Six Ways of Looking at Crip Time”
was the first time I really engaged in disabled texts. Samuel’s explanations
of her experiences as a disabled woman illustrated deeper meaning, such as
how the principles that modern society lives by are rooted in ableist ideas
that people don’t even think about. Another classroom tool that assisted me
in engaging with texts was Perusal. Because Perusal required that I add
comments to the text I was reading, I was able to really think about the text I
was reading instead of just consuming the content and moving on. Through
reading and interacting with disabled texts, I was able to better understand
the arguments and morals that the texts were trying to push forward.
Throughout this class I have had to undergo the process of rethinking
my writing to strengthen my arguments and rethinking about social norms I
had previously upheld. I previously held onto ideals created by ableist
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principles without even knowing it and used these ideals to look down upon
others. I wasn’t specifically targeting disabled people with these ideas, but I
was indirectly pushing forward ableist ideas, such as timeliness, work ethic,
and overcoming adversity. Through this class, I’ve been able to rethink my
morals, making them less about what people don’t do, and more about what
they do. For example, Audrey Lorde, talking about her battle with cancer in
The Cancer Journals, states, “I must let this pain pass through me and pass on.
If I resist or try to stop it, it will detonate inside me, shatter me, splatter my
pieces against every wall and person that I touch” (12). What is stronger
than enduring pain, not just for yourself, but for the sake of the people
around you? Rethinking is also present in the revision process. For the
revision of Project 2, I had to rethink the entire paper. The original thesis and
paper focused too heavily on the moral aspect of the argument, possibly
turning readers away.
The new thesis creates a clear argument that states that healthcare
workers should undergo more training to better understand disabled issues.
The first thesis states “Abortion based solely on fetus disability should
constitute discrimination because it affirms ableist ideals that serve to
separate disabled people from society”. If this thesis was more focused
throughout the paper, it would’ve been more effective. Instead, I focused on
a moral aspect, which only served to alienate my audience. The new thesis
states, “Abortion based solely on fetus disability is promoted by healthcare
professionals and further training should be undergone to separate ableist
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ideas from healthcare”. This thesis is more specific, outlining a clear goal for
the paper. Through this thesis I can focus less on a moral argument and
more on a concrete, rationally rooted argument. Through the process of
rethinking, I’ve learned how to improve my writing and thinking by going
back on focusing on what I can improve.
English 102 was the first class where I focused on addressing the
counter arguments and really focused on my audience. The most prominent
example of addressing the counter argument is present in Project 2, where I
bring up Peter Singer’s stance on the abortion of disabled fetuses. By
including and dismantling his argument in the paper, I strengthen my
argument by including the flaws in my opponents. I focused on my audience
more by changing the language I used in project two. In project two, I had
multiple instances where the language I used was inappropriate for the
paper I was writing, possibly serving to cause them to question the validity of
my stance. The first example of this was using the term “baby” in an earlier
draft instead of the word “fetus”. The word “fetus” is more suited for the
paper because it is a more medically correct term. The term “fetus” was also
more suited to the language used throughout the essays outside sources. By
addressing counter arguments and focusing on language, I served to
strengthen my argument and strengthen my connection with my audience.
English 102 is a class that has served me in ways far beyond the realm
of English. By learning how to engage in texts, I can now further understand
the nuances of the argument and how these values can be applied to current
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life and society. The act of rethinking topics has served me to both improve
my own writing and have the flexibility to approach ideas in different ways.
Learning how to address opposing academic arguments has allowed me to
strengthen my credibility as an author, something I hadn’t even considered
before this class. English 102 taught me important facets of English and
writing in a way that allows me to apply what I have learned in the class to
my everyday life. The skills I have learned in English 102 have not only
helped me improve my writing, but has helped me improve my perception of
disability, ability, and ableism.
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Works Cited
Lorde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. London: Penguin Classics, 2020.
Wong, Alice. Disability Visibility: Twenty-First Century Disabled Voices. Vintage Books, a
Division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2020.
