Beyond the Quest for the Cure: Forging Disability-Sensitive Jewish Bioethics

Abstract

While Jewish bioethicists frequently grapple with questions about the permissibility of gene therapies in a Jewish context, this article critiques the way in which scientific, religious, and popular reflection about genetic intervention designed to eliminate disability frequently sidelines the objections of specific disability communities and marginalizes their epistemic knowledge about disability experience. The author argues that decisions about genetic intervention and similar curative technologies must not go forward without a substantive way to take seriously the critiques raised by certain disability communities. Probing classical Jewish sources that recount rabbinic resistance to Roman medical prowess, the article illuminates how curative technology can become an expression of power and domination. The author's disability-sensitive reading of these texts underscores the bodily sovereignty of disabled people, affirming the significance of disabled people's lives without regard to conventional markers of productivity and worth, cherishing the embodied presence of disability in the world.