Sam Farmer
Published in Bouncin’ and Behavin’ Blogs
Dec 10, 2023
Torture is not the way to go about trying to teach or help somebody.
On November 13, 2023, I did something that I hope all of us get to experience at least once in our lifetimes. I took a stand for something I fervently believe in before the very people who have the power to actually do something about it. I publicly testified in support of MA House Bill H.180 in front of the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities of the MA State Legislature. H.180’s objective: to outlaw the use of electric shock and other aversive behavioral interventions leveled on autistic and other intellectually, developmentally, and mentally disabled people in our state.
These methods aim to stamp out behaviors considered to be toxic, including those that are self-injurious or that pose a danger to others. However, ample evidence exists which illustrates that these interventions merely suppress such behaviors, and only temporarily. Additional evidence points to abuses resulting in the application of electric shock on people exhibiting anything but extreme behaviors. Regardless of what the behavior is, these practices are torturous. Alternative, more compassionate methods have existed for some time now which are proven. Testimony given at the public hearing spoke to all of the above.
Torture is not the way to go about trying to teach or help somebody. Unless one thinks that PTSD, fear, anger, anxiety, depression, physical pain, and burn marks are helpful outcomes. Any sane person would agree that behaviors that pose a danger to oneself and to others need to be addressed. But the end does not always justify the means, particularly if the latter entails electric shock.
As an autistic individual and neurodiversity community self-advocate, I saw no other choice but to testify in person at the hearing. Doing so remotely was not going to be acceptable. I needed to look the members of the Joint Committee straight in the eye while saying what I had to say granted all that is at stake with H.180. I felt morally obligated.
If signed into law, the torture will finally end, and with it, a long and sordid history of injustices committed against a population of individuals who are among the most vulnerable in society. If not, then nothing changes, and many in my community for which I proudly advocate continue to pay the price. Not being there in person was simply not an option.
Remarkably, some who testified at the hearing did so in opposition to H.180, essentially condoning the continued use of electric shock. I can’t know if she was being truthful when speaking before the Joint Committee, though the mother of a student at the Judge Rotenberg Center, the only establishment in the state, and in the country, which has been known to administer electric shocks on disabled individuals for decades now, made it clear that because of the electric shock treatments used on her son, his most challenging behaviors improved, “he now lives a very good life” thanks to the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED), and “if you ban the GED, you will be taking away the only chance for him to thrive”.
These statements simply do not square with logic. Rather, they struck me as being delusional. I could not believe what I had just heard. I wondered if there was more to this mother’s story than she was letting on or if there was some hidden agenda at play. Simultaneously, my heart went out to her and to her son.
The GED, currently in its 4th generation, refers to the shock device in use at the JRC and which the school helped design. An effective stun gun has an amperage range of 3 to 4.9 mA (milliamps). The GED ranges from a median current of 13 mA (the GED-1) to 26 mA (today’s GED-4). When an older, less potent iteration of the GED lost its effectiveness (its victims eventually became desensitized to it), they built a new, more potent version.
Electric shock is illegal when used on inmates at maximum security prisons or prisoners of war. And yet, its use is legal, and publicly funded, when used on the JRC’s students. It’s the stigma surrounding neurodivergence and disability rearing its ugly head in the worst possible way. Today, in America, and in my home state.
Thankfully, those of us supporting H.180 greatly outnumbered those in opposition. The latter group left the hearing early, perhaps because they could only handle so much public dissent before having had enough. I was not at all surprised. It became clear early on that we were winning the day.
In my view, everybody whom the Joint Committee needed to hear from showed up and testified. Ours was a truly glorious team effort in this regard. Professionals and experts explain the extent of the damage done by aversive methods. Representatives of programs offering individualized, more humane interventions that have been shown to be effective. Stories of autistic individuals succeeding after having been freed from aversives. Neurodivergent survivors of the JRC’s draconian practices share gut-wrenching lived experiences of having been electric shocked while asleep or after having done something harmless or innocent. And, concerned citizens, including me.
Prior to the hearing, I was anticipating feeling chills running up and down my spine when asked to speak, granted the gravity of the issue at hand. On the contrary, when the chair of the Joint Committee called my name to testify, I didn’t flinch one bit. Having entered this hearing well-prepared, ready to roll and on a mission, I was quick to get up, walked steadily and confidently to the microphone, looked directly at the Joint Committee members, and proceeded as follows:
“Good afternoon, Chair Kennedy and Chair Livingstone.
I live only two towns over from Canton where the Judge Rotenberg Center is located, a reality that has caused me more emotional unease than words can express. Electric shock and other aversive interventions have been used on students who share my diagnosis. As an autistic, these interventions could very well have been used on me had I ended up there.
When the JRC’s students and other disabled individuals in programs across our state are hurt, I share in their pain. When an injustice is leveled on them, that same injustice is leveled on me as well. Autistic and other intellectually, developmentally, and mentally disabled individuals are one community. What affects some of us inevitably affects all of us.
For many in our community, sensory and emotional sensitivities run deep, rendering us particularly vulnerable to dysregulation, meltdowns, and trauma. Considering this, try to imagine the extent of the harm done by the GED devices. It has been documented that the GED’s lowest shock setting is about twice the threshold that pain researchers consider tolerable to most adult humans.
Recently, when the MA Supreme Judicial Court denied an appeal that would have vacated the consent decree allowing the JRC to continue its aversive practices, they made it clear that a legislative solution could accomplish this goal. Now is the time for the State Legislature to act. The highest court in our state has invited you to do so.
During her inaugural address, Governor Healey alluded to the importance of human rights in MA. This statement resonated strongly with me but in the worst possible way. In my view, these are hollow words until the human rights abuses leveled on disabled individuals at the JRC and elsewhere in our state come to an end. Is the state legislature going to allow the governor’s vision to remain unfulfilled or will you work to make it a reality?
Please pass House Bill H.180. If not the 193rd General Court of the Commonwealth of MA, then who? If not now, then when? Thank you.”
Now that the hearing is over and my written and oral testimony are part of the public record, I wait, I pray and I worry that H.180 may face an uphill climb. First, the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities needs to decide whether to advance the bill. A committee staffer told me that as of this writing, they have 170 bills before them, written and oral testimony for these bills to sift through, and only a few months’ time in which to make decisions.
If it advances, H.180 would then need to make its way through one or more of the state legislature’s “gatekeeper” committees, whom I was told will likely need to consider in the thousands of bills, and testimony for these, over the course of another few months. Then the legislature votes, and if it passes, our governor would hopefully sign it into law.
It seems too easy for any given bill to fall short, granted this process. And so I have to wonder, will the MA State Government see H.180 through and end up on the right side of history or will they allow the use of electric shock and other aversive behavioral interventions to continue despite all of the toxic fallout? It troubles me to no end that this question needs to be asked.
A few who gave supporting testimony at the public hearing wondered why this matter is even up for debate in 2023. In my view, it is because too many people in positions of authority have historically chosen to either dehumanize the intellectually, developmentally, and mentally disabled or stand by and let it happen such that the torture, and the debate, persist to this day.