Originally published in off our backs, Feb 1997, Vol. 27 Issue 2.

Copyright 1997 Carolyn Gage

ASSISTED DIVESTITURE FOR THE CARING-IMPAIRED

This future-fantasy was written as a protest against the obscene legislation

targeting the disabled population for legalized assisted suicide. Research
shows that disabled people want to end our lives for the same reasons that
able-bodied people do: lack of meaningful employment, inadequate
resources, lack of caring relationships. Disability should not be synonymous
with despair, and it is unconscionable that the government should promote
the killing off of the disabled as a solution to the widening gap between the
needs of the poor and the elderly and the availability of social services.
When the advisability of terminating a life is left in the hands of a physician,
the disabled are at great risk of becoming a population marked for
extermination. Unless assisted suicide is made legal on demand for
everybody, it should remain against the law. The problem is inequitable
distribution of resources, not the longevity of the physically challenged.

Many individuals in these post-revolution times are suffering needlessly, and

it is time that the Matriarchate address the needs of this population with the

same care and conscientiousness with which we have so diligently attended

to the needs of the elderly, the disabled, and the children since the passage

of the Corporate Reform Bill at the millennium, which ended corporations as

we know them. I am talking about those who have been clinically

diagnosed with Delusional Dominating Personality Disorder (DDPD), or -- in

more politically correct terms -- the "caring-impaired," and their urgent need

for legalized assisted divestiture.

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Ever since the peaceful takeover by the Matriarchate, the caring-impaired,

those afflicted with genetic, hereditary or contracted cupidity, have suffered

a dramatic and progressive decrease in quality of life, finding themselves

socially shunned, cut off from their accustomed networks and activities, and

also -- because of the reorganization of our economy to accommodate the

needs of the children (our most precious resource and sacred trust!), these

individuals have been increasingly unable to sustain their cupidity at even

the most basic level of acquisition, minimal luxuries being no longer

available to them under the terms of the Corporate Reform Bill. In short, the

accumulation of surplus that rendered their lives meaningful under the old

phallocratic regime is impossible under the Matriarchate, and the

possessions of the caring-impaired have become intolerable burdens to

them -- and, perhaps even more significantly, to their families.

Families of the caring-impaired, who are working hard to build the new

schools and health care systems, the burgeoning new arts industries, and

the parks and housing to meet the needs of the elderly, the disabled, and

the children, are finding themselves drained and exhausted by the incessant

and expensive demands of the their increasingly dependent morally-

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challenged relatives.

To address this crying social need, we are proposing the immediate

legalization of "assisted divestiture," so that these tortured individuals can

be aided in liquidating and disbursing the financial assets that are the

source of their suffering.

This proposed legislation would not be without protections. The individual

requesting the divestiture would have his holdings thoroughly appraised by

a competent team of consensually-appointed caregivers and by

accountants with a thorough knowledge of the patriarchal canon of

"corporate law," the obsolete codification of the distorted thinking of the

delusional dominating personality which led to the massive empathy deficit

of the former regime. This appraisal would ensure that the client, whose

disability would naturally impair his ability to make a fair assessment of his

own holdings, would not downplay the extent of his sufferings.

The point of an assisted divestiture would be the empowerment of the

client, and with this goal in mind, the client would be encouraged to arrange

a divestiture ceremony that would include family or friends, with the use of

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ritual. Divestiture is one of the most significant transitions a post-patriarchal

individual can make, and it is appropriate that it be accorded the dignity and

stature of a major rite of passage.

After the divestor has said his final good-byes to all of his excess holdings,

the team of assistants would present the documents that would reassign

these holdings to the trusteeship of the appropriate Matriarchal community

fund. When these papers are signed, the divestiture is complete, and the

individual will be on his way towards his new life on a higher spiritual plane.

Of course private divestiture is legal in all communities of the Matriarchate,

and many have willingly taken the step on their own. But for others, there is

too much fear and, occasionally, resistance from family members. The

abolition of inheritance has done much to lessen this resistance, but the old

superstitions die hard. It will take several generations for the ingrained

beliefs that equate hoarding with holiness to die out.

On the other hand, some of the fears of the caring-impaired are valid.

Without proper counseling, the divestor can bungle the paperwork, and find

himself more financially encumbered than before the attempted divestiture.

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Also, without proper preparation, the divestor may make the attempt before

he is ready for the changes that inevitably accompany the liquidation of

assets. Exercising the coercive skills of the delusionally dominating

personality, the self-divestor may end by doing violence to himself with too

hasty a divestiture.

As social pressures under the Matriarchy increasingly are isolating the

conscience-impaired, and as they find themselves cut off from the social

services of women, children, ethnic minorities, and the formerly

economically enslaved classes who historically provided so much of their

life support, these individuals are becoming increasingly desperate.

It is our hope that the humane and speedy implementation of Matriarchate-

wide "divestiture centers," as well as the dissemination of appropriate

materials to the general public, will help make assisted divestiture a more

acceptable practice -- one that becomes an easy and natural step to take

when the caring-impaired find that their materialism is overwhelming them

and their families.

If you would like to see the Assisted Divestiture Bill presented at the next

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Sitting of the Mothers, please send a FAX or E-mail with this message c/o

off our backs:

"The materialism of the caring-impaired has become an intolerable burden

to them and to those upon whom they are dependent. I give my

wholehearted consensus to the immediate implementation of the Assisted

Divestiture Bill. Signed, "

Carolyn Gage is a disabled, alive-and-kicking lesbian-feminist playwright.

Her catalog is online at <www.carolyngage.com>