{"id":1121,"date":"2018-04-13T14:24:46","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T14:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2018-04-13T14:24:46","modified_gmt":"2018-04-13T14:24:46","slug":"still-shocking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/?p=1121","title":{"rendered":"Still Shocking"},"content":{"rendered":"

CONTENT WARNING: physical abuse and torture<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

GED device like the ones used by the Rotenberg Center.<\/p><\/div>\n

On Thursday, April 24, 2014, the FDA held a hearing to decide whether it\u2019s okay to shock autistic people into submission. They held another hearing in 2016. It\u2019s 2018 now, and the shocks haven\u2019t stopped.<\/p>\n

The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center In Canton, MA administers strong electrical shocks<\/a> (60 volts and 15 milliamps) as part of its \u201caversive therapy\u201d to prevent students from self-harm and aggression, though in reality, records show that they\u2019re applied for as little as blowing spit bubbles or standing up. Children as young as nine years old receive this torture, which Dr. Ivar Lovaas saw as a logical extension of his ABA therapy<\/a>, which many autistic people already consider<\/a> a form of torture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Still shot of video showing Andre McCollins being shocked.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Center has been subject to a number of scandals, including the deaths of several patients in the 1980s and \u201890s. In June 2012, videotape was released to the media, showing JRC student Andre McCollins being restrained for over seven hours. In that time, he was shocked 31 times for infractions such as \u201ctensing his body and yelling.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0JRC spokespeople maintained that it was part of his court-approved treatment plan, but it left him hospitalized in a catatonic state for five and a half weeks. The UN later ruled that the incident fit their definition of torture.<\/p>\n

The JRC claims that aversive therapy produces marked behavior modification. They maintain that, “Without the treatment program at JRC, these children and adults would be condemned to lives of pain by self-inflicted mutilation, psychotropic drugs, isolation, restraint and institutionalization\u2014or even death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the FDA advisory panel recommended that all of these devices be banned. Some suggested that there should be a six-month period for \u201ctapering off,\u201d as if electric shocks are a medicine from which you must withdraw slowly or experience severe side effects. Even this qualified decision was a narrow one: only 60 percent of the panel approved the ban recommendation.<\/p>\n

One of the most disturbing parts of the FDA panel in 2014 was the amount of time spent addressing the question of whether autistic people feel pain the same way as \u201cnormal\u201d people. After all, if they can with stand repeated 60-volt shocks\u2014sufficient to inflict second-degree burns to their skin\u2014they can hardly have a \u201chuman tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the heart of this whole hearing, and indeed the story of the Judge Rotenberg Education Center, there lies a fundamental question: are autistics really human like the \u201crest of us\u201d? Othering is a necessary component to any system of training or discipline that requires cruel and inhumane punishment. It\u2019s okay to beat that slave, rape that woman, lock away that crazy person, or exterminate that ethnicity\u2014they\u2019re not the same as us. They don\u2019t even have the same feelings that we have. They\u2019re no better than animals; if we could only train them to be like us, we wouldn\u2019t have to apply such tortures.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

An ad in the “Ransom Notes” series issued by NYU.<\/p><\/div>\n

And the problem with the dominant rhetoric surrounding autism right now\u2014promoted relentlessly by groups like<\/a> Autism $peaks<\/a>\u2014is that the autistic is silent, incapable of communicating from their self-imposed mental prison. An autistic child is a changeling, a dummy replica of the stolen, beloved, \u201creal\u201d child. This heartless thief leaves grieving families in suspended animation, and it must be combatted like anything that would abduct our children<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

An ad by the National Foundation for Autism Research (NFAR).<\/p><\/div>\n

It stands to reason that anything that might recover a lost child is worth a try. But there\u2019s a fundamental disconnect between the \u201clost one\u201d and the object on which \u201ctherapies\u201d as bizarre and inhumane as bleach enemas, severe emetics, and electrical shocks are applied. The object being treated must stay \u201cother,\u201d or those desperate parents must face the reality that they are physically and mentally torturing their own child.<\/p>\n

Except that all of this is a lie. There is no other son, no lost daughter\u2014the children in front of us are real and human. They can communicate, and they can most certainly feel. They will not fare that much better in the world if parents or therapists abuse them until they stop flapping their hands or raising their voices. In fact, they\u2019ll do just as poorly as any physically or mentally abused child. Because that\u2019s what they are when treated with restraints, sensory deprivation, and electrical shocks\u2014victims of torture.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s offensive that it took a special hearing in 2014 to decide whether administering shocks to human beings was a legitimate form of \u201ceducation.\u201d It\u2019s infuriating that the FDA felt the need for more hearings in 2016. And it\u2019s utterly disgusting that in 2018, the patients of the Judge Rotenberg Center are still waiting for the torture to end.<\/p>\n

What you can do:<\/p>\n

Visit the extensive living archive<\/a> about the Judge Rotenberg Center, compiled and maintained by Lydia X. Z. Brown.<\/p>\n

Take action<\/a> to urge the FDA to finally enforce the ban they recommended in 2014.<\/p>\n

Spread the word using the hashtag #StopTheShock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CONTENT WARNING: physical abuse and torture On Thursday, April 24, 2014, the FDA held a hearing to decide whether it\u2019s okay to shock autistic people into submission. They held another hearing in 2016. It\u2019s 2018 now, and the shocks haven\u2019t stopped. The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center In Canton, MA administers strong electrical shocks (60 volts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[239,193,436,433,35,600,601,65,602,69],"class_list":["post-1121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physical-ed","tag-abuse","tag-autism","tag-autism-acceptance-month","tag-autism-speaks","tag-human-rights","tag-judge-rotenberg-center","tag-physical-abuse","tag-sensory","tag-therapy","tag-torture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1126,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions\/1126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}