No shit. That is the point. What, did you not read the first page? Or did you think I changed my mind between then and now?
I don’t understand. I thought this guy was unable to communicate. 
Verbally, but they’re talking about physically moving when he finds something uncomfortable or wants food or something.
WF Tomba was saying that if you read the perpetrator’s own account, the victim’s behavior suggests resistance to her assault. She uses FC to give her behavior a different spin through their “dialog.”
I stil don’t understand. I was refering to the part where he types on a keyboard. If he can type, what’s the problem with communicating with him?
Also, all the people I met with cerebral palsy were only slightly handicaped (blurred speeh and difficulty controling their limbs) and perfectly sound mentally as far as I could tell. How bad can cerebral palsy be?
Some of this reminds me of Helen Keller.
When Helen was in college their was alot of discussion about just how much of the work was being done by Helen and how much was being done by her teacher Anne Sullivan because only a few people could communicate with Helen besides Anne and throughout Helen’s life she was used as a paycheck by people like Anne who made money off of Anne.
In a way this woman was doing the same with DJ. Using him as an example of “look at the work I’ve done” to further her own career. Its interesting both Anne and this Anna (hmmm… similar names) worked to make sure few other people learned how to communicate with them (Helen and DJ). I would think that with Anna she would have encouraged DJ to work with other facilitators.
Now the sex thing, well first of all yes, they are capable of sexual relations. But it should be with someone of their own level.
Stubblefield should have not allowed it. DJ should have been encouraged to find a woman of similar levels so they can have a near equal relationship. Other option, I’ve heard of other cases of persons with disabilities that the family has hired a sex worker who sort of specializes in this sort of thing. I’ve talked to people who work with disabled couples, who do fall in love, who do want to have sex, and yes, they have had to have sex therapists literally be in the bedroom with the couple to teach them how to pleasure each other.
But the most important thing would be for DJ to have relationships with others like himself. To push him into a emotional, intimate, and sexual relationship with a person clearly outside of his is to me abuse and she should be punished for it.
Did you not read the article? DJ can only type in the sense that a Ouija board can spell out messages. It only “worked” when Stubblefield, Stubblefield’s mother, or an undergraduate student assistant recruited by Stubblefield guided his hand. He couldn’t do it on his own, and he couldn’t do it when his mother or brother tried to assist him even after they had been trained in facilitated communication.
It seems obvious from the article that Stubblefield was “helping” DJ to type what she wanted him to type, but even if she were really assisting him with expressing his own thoughts then we’d still have only her word for it that he voluntarily typed that he wanted to have sex with her. No one else was there, and DJ cannot independently give an account of what happened.
I was wondering the same thing. That and all the discussion in the thread about how FC is total bullshit. It was kind of hard to miss.
Do you have a cite regarding Anne Sullivan preventing other people from communicating with Helen Keller? What you say here sounds very different from what I learned about Keller in school (although what I learned in school may very well have been candy-coated), and from what I found in the Wikipedia article on Keller just now:
I also turned up an old SDMB thread titled Was the Authenticity of Helen Keller’s Story Ever Challenged? and the consensus among Dopers seemed to be that Keller really was communicating her own thoughts.
Helen Keller was certainly communicating her own thoughts, but after Sullivan’s death Keller was no longer as prolific. She admitted that she depended greatly on Sullivan. This is not the same situation, Sullivan may have been an editor and inspiration for her, but it was nothing like FC. Considering how limited Helen Keller’s senses were this shouldn’t be surprising.
Where does it say she was a psychologist? She was a philosophy professor from everything I have read. Just curious.
It was mysterious but it made the most sense. I saw mention that she had a PhD, so I figured that she probably wasn’t an MD, and most PhD’s who treat patients are clinical psychologists, at least around here.
How would a philosophy professor even get into that kind of situation? It seems that it would be hard for a non-clinician to have enough cred to get patients, especially ones that are hard to work with.
Her mother did similar work working with handicapped people. It’s not so much having cred as parents of such children seeking any remedy.
There’s nothing to remotely suggest the guy was a patient or that this was any kind of treatment. You don’t earn “cred” to get patients, you get licensed by the state. You cannot get licensed as a philosopher.
This is explained in the article.
So what was this woman expecting out of the relationship long term?
Lets say they do move in together and get married. What kind of equal partnership or relationship would they have? Your talking about a man who would need to be fed, bathed, and have his diaper changed. When she is at work he would still need a full time caregiver.
Oh and I dont know about New York but here in Kansas persons on state medicaid cannot be married. So her income would have to pay for all his needs.
Others have addressed the mistaken reference to Helen Keller, so I’ll discuss this part.
Did you read the article?
There is zero, zero evidence that DJ was actually communicating with anyone, hence he could not been “encouraged to find a woman of similar levels”.
This is the entire point of the article and this thread.
Likewise, all indicators point that he does not have the mental capacity to form the relationship which you are claiming he was forced into.
After you provide the cite for your BS claim about Anne Sullivan, can you show where the hell you get this view of DJ, when the article clearly states he has been diagnosed with the mental capacity of a toddler?
My issue is that she has no mens rea–no intent to commit a crime. I don’t do consequentialism, and am a big proponent of intent. So I need some reason besides the fact that it she was mistaken to be able to say what she did was morally wrong.
And my reasoning in other statutory rape cases is that you have to be negligent to not know that a child or drunk person can’t consent. That’s why I can agree that those things should be illegal. So I need for her to be negligent for thinking that facilitated communication is valid.
People cause harm all the time because of mistaken beliefs. I need that mistaken belief to be so bad that it’s considered negligent to act upon it. Chiropractic is bullshit. But I will not support trying a chiropractor for murder because he manipulated a spine incorrectly. Because we as a society still accept chiropractic as being valid medicine. Therefore, only what applies to other medical professional can apply here.
The fact that New Jersey has already declared consent from FC to be invalid is actually pretty useful to me, and has, in the time since I posted that, been enough to convince me that what this woman did was rape–even though I was not so sure initially.
Without that, I would say that FC was considered valid enough by the public that she could only be convicted of lesser crimes that a doctor could be with a consenting patient.
Does that make sense? I’m not arguing that my thinking is correct, just explaining how it works for me. Consequentialism makes it where you can’t do anything, since anything you can do can cause harm and thus be immoral. So I have to reject it, even in cases like this where it is quite appealing.
What if it were not a licensed chiropractor but just some guy who sincerely believed he could help a person by manipulating the spine in a fatal manner? You’re basically arguing an insanity defense and I don’t see Stubblefield as incapable of appreciating the difference between right and wrong. To the contrary I see someone who knew what she was doing would be considered wrong and she chose to ignore that.
No, I’m not arguing an insanity defense. I think she knows the difference between right and wrong. She just thinks she had valid consent, and thus did not knowingly commit the crime of rape. In general, I think you should have to know you are committing a crime to be convicted. The exception is when not knowing you were committing a crime counts as being negligent.
So, in your scenario, you’ve added some negligence. You have to be negligent to not know that you can’t just practice medicine without a license. You have to be negligent to think you can manipulating spines without proper training.
My issue is just that I don’t think consequentialism is valid, so the mere fact that someone died due to spinal manipulations is not enough to call the person responsible for the death. The fact that the nurse had sex with this person without him giving valid consent is not in and of itself enough to establish rape. You need the fact that she SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that the consent was invalid.
Just like it’s not rape if you thought someone was of age to consent to sex. The consent is invalid, but you didn’t know that. It’s only if you SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that the person was underage (and thus the consent invalid) so that it can still be rape.
And, note, I did say that** I concluded that what is described in the OP is in fact rape**. I now completely support the verdict. I was just hesitant initially. So I am no longer defending this woman at all.