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Genetic developments are viewed with distrust by the disability rights community. But the argument that genetic screening promotes social injustice is not straightforward. Disabled people are affected by both the problems of impairment and the problems of disability. Preventing impairment should be a priority as well as preventing disability. Questions of social justice arise if biomedical approaches are prioritized at the cost of structural changes in society. They also arise when disabled people do not have access to genetic medicine. On a global scale, the priorities for impairment prevention are basic healthcare, not high technology medicine.

The UK social model of disability (SSM) originated within a political context, which is both a strength and a weakness. Good social research has been conducted prior to, and outside, the confines of the SSM. The SSM is above all a brilliant tool for mobilising change. But it can be applied over‐zealously. Since the 1990s, various critiques of the SSM have been developed, exposing contradictions and inadequacies. Equally, some of the parallels between disability and other social movements may need to be tested. Identity politics and psychology explain some of the fervour of SSM debates. To move forward, a social theory of embodiment is required.

This article discusses the different contexts in which disabled people encounter and deploy humour, both as victims and as agents, and provides examples. It raises questions about identity and audience and interpretation and about embodiment itself.

This article attempts to put developments in molecular biology into the broader context of disability rights and the relationship between disabled people and medical science. It includes a critique of biologi cal reduclionism and of the role of the media in inflating 'back-to- basics biology'. The article suggests that disabled people have not been consulted or involved in debates around the new genetics and that a wider discussion of these developments is urgently needed.