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The Projects of the American Disability Rights Movement

Samuel R. Bagenstos

in Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement

This chapter presents the history of the American disability rights movement and its many, sometimes conflicting, projects. It begins with a brief tour of the major components of the disability ... More

This chapter presents the history of the American disability rights movement and its many, sometimes conflicting, projects. It begins with a brief tour of the major components of the disability rights movement, focusing on the movement's development in the two decades leading up to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. It discusses the one position that approaches consensus within the movement—the endorsement of a social rather than a medical model of disability. It then describes the intramovement tensions that the broad agreement on a social model obscures. It gives particularly extensive treatment to the tensions within the notion of “independence” that has been a fulcrum of disability rights thinking in the United States. Those tensions have come to the fore, in various ways, as courts have made decisions interpreting the ADA and advocates have considered further legislation.Less

Introduction

Samuel R. Bagenstos

in Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement

This introductory chapter discusses the three major themes running throughout the book: the pluralism of the disability rights movement; the contestable nature of what is “disability” and how society ... More

This introductory chapter discusses the three major themes running throughout the book: the pluralism of the disability rights movement; the contestable nature of what is “disability” and how society should respond to it; and the surprising narrowness of the accommodation requirement. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

The Case for the Abolition of Mental Health Law

Kay Wilson

in Mental Health Law: Abolish or Reform?

Chapter 3 traces the history of opposition to mental health law including anti-psychiatry and the emergence of the disability rights movement explaining where the call for the abolition of mental ... More

Chapter 3 traces the history of opposition to mental health law including anti-psychiatry and the emergence of the disability rights movement explaining where the call for the abolition of mental health law has come from and why it has emerged in international human rights law now. It argues that the call for abolition is more than just a reaction to historically poor treatment, but is a qualitatively different basis for understanding mental impairment. It explains the Abolition with Support model and sets out the key arguments for the abolition of mental health law being that mental health law is a form of social control of non-conformists, that it is discriminatory and a denial of legal capacity, that free and informed consent is integral to the right to health, that it is an unjustified interference with liberty, that it is an unjustified interference with the integrity of the person, that it is a form of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and punishment, that it is inconsistent with the right to independent living, that it is ineffective and un-therapeutic, that there are better non-coercive alternatives, that it undermines the ‘dignity of risk’ of persons with mental impairment, and that mental health law is too ‘easy’ and creates a culture of coercion throughout the entire mental health system. While I ultimately argue against the abolition of mental health law in favour of substantial reform, I argue that it is important to listen to and properly understand abolitionists’ concerns in order to improve mental health law and include persons with mental impairment in the policy-making and health-care decision-making process.Less

Jerry’s Kids Grow Up: Disability Rights Activists and Telethons

Paul K. Longmore

Catherine Kudlick (ed.)

in Telethons: Spectacle, Disability, and the Business of Charity

Within a growing conversation about minority rights, many activists decried telethons for propagating the charity and medical model ideologies that pathologized people with disabilities. Some ... More

Within a growing conversation about minority rights, many activists decried telethons for propagating the charity and medical model ideologies that pathologized people with disabilities. Some organized protests; others worked inside the charities to change telethon messages. And still others, some of them clients of the charities who considered themselves advocates, accepted the messages grounded in the medical and charitable frameworks as accurate, or at least necessary. Charity professionals disputed activists’ charges even as they sought to modify their telethons’ messages. The protests, responses of charities, and varying opinions among disabled people in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries underscored the complicated transformation of ideas about disability and disabled people that provoked a backlash from telethon-related charities.Less

The Limits of the Antidiscrimination Model

Samuel R. Bagenstos

in Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement

This chapter examines the success of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in achieving the goals of the disability rights movement. It shows that although the ADA has not had a significantly ... More

This chapter examines the success of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in achieving the goals of the disability rights movement. It shows that although the ADA has not had a significantly negative effect on the employment and community participation of people with disabilities, the statute's positive effects have been limited at best. Two explanations are offered. The first rests on the difficulty in effectively enforcing the ADA given the limited remedies available for violation of the statute. The second rests on the limits of antidiscrimination law in achieving broad and deep social change. Each of these factors has played a role in the ADA's limited success in achieving the core goals of the disability rights movement.Less

Consciousness and Alienation

James I. Charlton

in Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment

Demonstrating a phenomenology of disability oppression requires consideration of how the relations and structures of that oppression are reproduced. In examining these relationships, many ... More

Demonstrating a phenomenology of disability oppression requires consideration of how the relations and structures of that oppression are reproduced. In examining these relationships, many considerations unfold from the central questions of how people think about, feel, and cope with the particular manifestation of that oppression in their own lives and why people passively consent to power. Are they manipulated or co-opted? This chapter notes that wherever oppression has existed, there has been resistance to it. Society's backward beliefs about and attitudes toward disability not only are society's beliefs; they are internalized by most people with disabilities as well. This explains why consciousness, or more precisely, the falsification of it, is not only a crucial element in the oppression of people with disabilities but also the major barrier faced by the disability rights movement.Less

People with Disabilities

Nora Ellen Groce

in Social Injustice and Public Health

This chapter addresses the social injustice experienced by people with disabilities and how this social injustice impacts their health. More than 1 billion people live with a physical, sensory, ... More

This chapter addresses the social injustice experienced by people with disabilities and how this social injustice impacts their health. More than 1 billion people live with a physical, sensory, intellectual, or mental health impairment significant enough to make a difference in their daily lives. The chapter addresses poverty, access to healthcare, disability-specific resources, HIV/AIDS and disability, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The author asserts that a critical next step is building awareness that people with disabilities must be included in all work on development, social justice, and health, and building the commitment to do so. What distinguishes people with disabilities is not their common needs, but the fact that many of these needs continue to be unmet. Public health workers can play important roles in meeting this challenge, ensuring that disability issues are routinely included in all phases of public health practice, education, and research.Less

How not to be a Superhero: Narrative Prosthetics and The Human Fly

Alaniz José

in Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond

This chapter examines the short-lived Marvel Comics series The Human Fly, which features a protagonist who preferred Evel Knievel-type daredevil stunts and charity work to crime-fighting; adventured ... More

This chapter examines the short-lived Marvel Comics series The Human Fly, which features a protagonist who preferred Evel Knievel-type daredevil stunts and charity work to crime-fighting; adventured in exotic locales such as Montreal; never appeared without his mask or revealed his identity; and possessed no superpowers, though he did boast a “metal skeleton” and overcame a devastating injury through sheer willpower. The Human Fly challenged and reaffirmed accustomed notions of superheroism as well as disability. Over the course of its run, the title brought attention to real-world issues such as substandard medical care for Vietnam War veterans and the integration of the disabled into the workplace, just as the US disability rights movement was turning to a more activist phase. The Human Fly demonstrated the limits of combining “reality” with superheroics, and the ways in which disability redefines the superhero genre.Less

Conclusion: “Living with Autism Shouldn’t Be Hard”

Michael B. Bakan

in Speaking for Ourselves: Conversations on Life, Music, and Autism

In the concluding chapter, it is proposed that while dialogue, music, poetry, and storytelling—collectively the lifeblood of this work—should by no means be regarded as substitutes for progressive ... More

In the concluding chapter, it is proposed that while dialogue, music, poetry, and storytelling—collectively the lifeblood of this work—should by no means be regarded as substitutes for progressive public policy or impactful legislation in the ongoing struggle for autistic rights, they are nevertheless valuable in their own right and can pave the way toward new policies and laws that make a real, positive difference. Conversation, in particular, is singled out for its capacity to help us “find common ground from which to move forward in common purpose toward the common good” while distancing us from “the tragic patterns of divisiveness, prejudice, intolerance, and denial of the humanity of others that darken the record of human history at every turn.” For conversation to foster such gains, however, our discourses must be approached with a commitment to really listening to what other people have to say. The greatest hope that the author and his collaborators have for this book, it is stated, is that its conversations and stories will ultimately “contribute in some meaningful way to making a future world that not only accepts neurodiversity but celebrates it as a hallmark of our shared humanity.” The work concludes with, first, a quotation from Hans Asperger emphasizing the importance of deeply engaged, compassionate conversation in his work with autistic children and, second, a closing poem from Mara Chasar, who suggests that however grave the challenges faced by autistic people may be, to be accepted, inspired, and loved by others will go a long way toward meeting them.Less