Disability

I am a person in a wheelchair because I can’t walk. However, I don’t think of myself as being a“disabled person”. I consider myself a person who happens to have disabilities due to the impairments from Multiple Sclerosis.

I feel that how a person is classified or labeled has a profound effect on both the person and on society’s image of that person. Just think about it!

When you hear that someone is disabled what is your image of that person? How is it different when you hear a person has some disabilities due to medical impairments? . I certainly think that the word disability has less of a negative connotation than “crippled”! When I graduated from physical therapy school in 1957 this term was still being used. And the word person was never attached to it.

To be fair I do think that society has tried to find less negative terms to categorize people who have impairments. And they still do use the word impairment as well as handicapped and special needs. But disabled has become the consistent and legal word to describe all person’s with impairments ( visual, hearing, mental, developmental, neurological ,emotional problems etc.). But in reality it just lumps everyone together, forgetting that they are many individual people who are unable to do a variety of things for a variety of medical reasons!

For example I know a young man who has minor neurological problems. He was diagnosed as a gifted learning disabled child. He always questioned why he had the term learning disabled as he had no disability in learning. His disability was in retrieving that knowledge quickly in speech, or writing. But with the use of the computer, a calculator and increased time when writing was required he did not feel he was disabled. As an adult now he’s not an athlete and he does still have slight residual speech impairment but he’s learned to cope and find ways to get around it.

I myself have MS. And over the years as my impairments from MS increased I went from a cane to a walker (with a seat) to a manual wheelchair and now to an electric wheelchair. And in my home adaptations were made to the doors, bathroom, ramps, lift in the van etc. When a new impairment reduced my functionality I tried to find a solution to maintain my independence. Not to let myself be disabled in that activity.

More and more I have felt strongly that society’s need to classify people as disabled stigmatizes them and puts them into a box. And this box limits their options for change and progress to independence.

So I was thrilled to see the U.N. this year establish the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as they celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

This Convention has been in the making since the year 2000. It came about because people around the world recognized that the rights of people with disabilities were not being protected under the Existing Seven for Human Rights. They found that persons with disabilities faced discrimination in all aspects of society in the workplace in education in government and in social programs. So this convention was not created to create new rights for the disabled but only to assure that they had the same rights as everyone else.

What is most exciting to me about this is that there is an apparent shift in the thinking about disability! The shift from considering persons with a disability to be a social welfare concern to a human rights issue. This shift acknowledges that societal barriers and prejudices are in themselves disabling. As the bylaws state: “The recognition that disability is an evolving concept and disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.” (The full bylaws are in this PDF)

There was a special ceremony on May 12 in New York City to give the estimated 650 million persons with disabilities worldwide dignity and justice with this Convention.

My thankful gratitude goes to all those people from all over the world who have fought for this convention. And also to the 128 countries that have signed this convention since March 3, 2007 and those seven countries that have already ratified the convention.

True equal rights can now become a little closer to reality for all the persons with disabilities ( the children and adults who have impairments) and hopefully relief to their families. Now if this can just get down to the grassroots and people and societies start to think differently too!

For more information on the Convention, here's their website

Ellie