The weight of history: child protection and parenting with a disability in 20^th Century Iceland

ABSTRACT

This contribution focuses on four periods in Iceland, from the early twentieth century until the time of writing, in order to document and analyse the struggles of people with intellectual disabilities to marry, have a family and maintain custody of their children. Each period is linked to specific pieces of legislation that governed the bodies and lives of disabled people and reflected larger social norms concerning issues of family life and parenthood. An emphasis is placed upon the perspective of contemporary critical disability studies in analysing the historical development of this struggle, and the voices of those who experienced this struggle first-hand, drawn from a number of research projects conducted in Iceland. Our main contention is that the weight of history still comes to bear upon matters of parenting and family life, even in the most recent shift toward a human rights approach to disability. There remains a strong socio-cultural resistance toward parenting with an intellectual disability, rooted in the ideology of early twentieth-century eugenics. Our goal is to document the development of these phases throughout the twentieth century in Iceland in order to illustrate how older ideas and prejudices still inform contemporary child protection practices concerning parents with disabilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Intellectual disabilities
• child protection
• eugenics
• Iceland
• parenting

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Law on allowing when appropriate operation on people to prevent them from having offspring, nr. 16/1938.

2. Law on assistance for the mentally retarded, nr. 47/1979.

3. Lög um málefni fatlaðs fólks nr. 59/1992.

4. Lög um þjónustu við fatlað fólk með langvarandi stuðningsþarfir nr. 38/2018.

5. Some of this material has appeared in various forms, from unpublished theses to journal articles, book chapters and edited volumes (Sigurjónsdóttir, 1999, 2005; Sigurjónsdóttir & Traustadóttir, 2001; Traustadóttir & Sigurjónsdóttir, 2005, pp. 147–161, 2008).

6. The MA study included 10 mothers with ID, as well as three adult children. The PhD study included 8 families headed by parents with ID, as well as their support workers. The data included in-depth semi-structured interviews, but also data drawn from participant observation, focus groups and informal conversations which arose during the parenting groups maintained by the first author from the time of the research into the present.

7. Funding provided by the University of Iceland’s Research Fund. Principal Investigators and Co-Applicants Hanna Björg Sigurjónsdóttir and James G. Rice.

8. Law on allowing when appropriate operation on people to prevent them from having offspring, nr. 16/1938.

9. Alþingi. Ófrjósemisaðgerðir 1938–1975 [Sterilizations 1938–1975]. 17.04.2002.

10. Law on the establishment and dissolution of marriage, nr. 39/1921.

11. Lög um fávitahæli nr. 18/1936.

12. Act on child protection, nr. 43/1932.

13. Alþingi 1932 29. mál, fávitahæli [Parliamentary discussion 1932 29^th issue, imbecile asylum].

14. Act on imbecile asylum, nr. 53/1967.

15. Lög um aðstoð við þroskahefta, nr. 47/1979.

16. Lög um aðstoð við þroskahefta, nr. 47/1979.

17. Lög um málefni fatlaðra, nr. 41/1983.

18. Lög um málefni fatlaðs fólks nr. 59/1992.

19. Lög um þjónustu við fatlað fólk með langvarandi stuðningsþarfir nr. 38/2018.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Iceland Research Fund [NA].