Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Disturbing legal rulings in the UK

This brief, mentioned in the Telegraph article, concerns a 41 year old "mildly learning disabled" man who has been legally barred from having sexual encounters and will be under supervision to ensure that he does not break the judicial order. Why? Apparently he has an above-average sexual drive, doesn't know "enough" to make informed consent and there's a belief that he will somehow be damaged and disturbed if given basic sexual health education. Let's see if I understood: he wants it, he's doing it, but they don't think he has the capacity to understand what he's doing, so someone's going to be paid to be his Anti-Sex Chaperone?

More info on the court here and here as well as the wiki page.

Anyone else find this frighteningly Orwellian???

2 comments:

Ellen said...

AAHHHH!!!
that is so scary!
Like in the US in the early 1900's when people who did poorly on IQ tests were sterilized.

One of my roommates used to work with people with developmental disabilities, she had clients who were married- both had developmental disabilities and were working to have as much independence as possible. That's the point of social services- to help enable people to be as independent as possible. It's call 'least resistance'- not, 'lets control people'.
AHHH!

--jenna said...

What's striking to me is that they want to control his sexual life because he's not "aware" of the consequences...but at the same time, no one is going around putting chastity belts on people who are fully aware and yet disregard them. THAT would be a better use of the judicial system, in my opinion!