FISCAL AUSTERITY AND THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF DISABILITY

A Bioethical and Sociological Analysis of Stigma in Rehabilitation within the Brazilian Unified Health System

Abstract

This study analyzes the deleterious impact of Constitutional Amendment 95 (EC 95) on the Care Network for People with Disabilities (RCPD) of the Unified Health System (SUS), from an interdisciplinary perspective grounded in the Bioethics of Protection and the Sociology of Health. The central objective is to investigate how the freezing of public spending for twenty years compromises the transition from the medical model to the biopsychosocial model, using as theoretical frameworks the phenomenology of Susan Wendell, the stigma of Erving Goffman, and the expansion of capabilities of Amartya Sen. The results indicate that fiscal austerity acts as a mechanism of institutional stigmatization and "budgetary necropolitics," producing "social disability" by depriving individuals of essential assistive technologies. The SUS is reaffirmed as an inalienable tool of citizenship for social justice in Brazil.