Should your rights as a person with a disability stop when you leave the country?

I think most people with MS would say that all people with disabilities around the world should have the same protections we have in the United States because of laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). And yet our own leaders refused to acknowledge this when the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in December, 2012. Why did that happen? Find out at a couple of events happening this week.

Many groups like the National MS Society were very active in supporting the CRPD. In fact, we helped to generate thousands of messages to our members of Congress, urging their support for the treaty. We'll be trying again this year as it agains comes up for consideration. However, it wasn't enough and we failed by five votes.

To learn more about these efforts, I invite you to participate in two events put on by our disability rights allies:

1) A conference call put on by national disability rights leaders, including U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, to discuss the plan for CRPD ratification. It will be Thursday, May 16 at 12 p.m. PT. To RSVP, click here.

2) An evening lecture at the University of Washington with three leading disability activists to explain the CRPD, examine why the U.S. Senate refused to ratify it, and explore strategies to achieve ratification of the treaty this year. It will be held this Thursday, May 16 from 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at William Gates Hall at UW Law School. RSVP to Jodi Rose at jodir@dr-wa.org

How do you define disability?

A few things coming across my desk recently have really made me think more about the definition of disability. The first item was an extensive segment on NPR that described a significant increase in the numbers of people who are on government disability programs (SSDI and SSI).  The author's point is that disability programs have become the "new" welfare for the unemployed and it's too easy to get on disability. The piece has been widely criticized by disability advocates for being unfair and missing the point that the increase is due largely to demographic changes (an aging workforce) and that it's actually very difficult to get disability benefits. A quick google search will point you to many of these criticisms, though this long one gave me much to think about. Whether the claims made in the NPR story are true or not, you can't deny that more people are on disability programs and we need to figure out a sustainable way to pay for them - and figure out what we can do to increase the self-sufficiency of people with disabilities (more on that below).

Then I saw an announcement about a speaker from the Disability History Museum, an online effort to educate the public about the disability movement over the years. It has some great exhibits and helped me understand that "disability" has so much attachment to paid work, it's no surprise that articles like the NPR segment and this one on disabled firefighters keep popping up.

In particular, both these things made me think about the diverse groups of people within the "disability community" - if there is such a thing. For example, someone with an MS-related disability likely acquired it during their adult life. They are aware of what it is like to not have a disability and so to them, a disabled life is a different life. For someone who has been disabled since birth, disabled life is not different, it just is. So it gives me a better understanding of why disability groups have traditionally played in different circles in Olympia - a problem I'm trying to correct by the way. Most excitingly, I'm working to bring disability advocates of all stripes together to support a major initiative to increase employment for people with disabilities.

This debate of what it really means to have a disability is also front and center to the disabled parking discussion that is going through the Legislature and the City of Seattle. Many assert that there is systemic abuse of disabled parking placards by people who don't really need them or have obtained them illegally. With too many placards in circulation, the City of Seattle asserts that people without disabilities are being left without any place to park. I know many people with MS have been accused (either silently or otherwise) of not being disabled enough, and shouldn't use these placards. But what are the real problems in the system? Are too many people disabled? (I know too many people live with MS in Seattle, but I don't have an easy way to fix that.) Do we make it too easy to have the government say you are disabled? I don't think many people with MS who have applied for disability would say that.

How do you think we should write laws that help people with disabilities (including unpredictable and sometimes temporary symptoms like those associated with MS) while not giving everyone a free pass? 

Why did the disability treaty fail?

The Boston Globe has a great article on why the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities failed to pass the US Senate this past December. Traditionally, disability issues have always been bipartisan. For example, former Senator Bob Dole, one of the disability movement's leaders, helped to push through the Americans with Disabilities Act (the ADA) under President George H. W. Bush with significant bipartisan support.

Unfortunately, the issue has now become a divisive issue in today's acrimonious political environment. Despite what seemed to be a sure bet, ratification of the international treaty failed by five votes. Only eight Republicans voted for it.

Here's the Boston Globe article. For someone like me who is rather new to the disability movement, it also offers a thoughtful overview of the politics that surround disability issues.

Within the MS community, I know there are Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. We put our political viewpoints aside in order to focus on what's best for people with MS. What can we do to make disability rights a bipartisan issue again?