NDRN and Disability Rights Washington Issue Report: Devaluing People with Disabilities: Medical Procedures that Violate Civil Rights
NDRN and Disability Rights Washington Issue Report: Devaluing People with Disabilities: Medical Procedures that Violate Civil Rights
Friends -A joint effort between NDRN and Disability Rights Washington, Devaluing People with Disabilities: Medical Procedures that Violate Civil Rights, provides a crucial, but missing, link in the discussion about how society can and should make medical decisions that uphold the rights and inherent dignity of people with disabilities.
The report puts individuals with disabilities at the center of this discourse. It reviews the facts of Ashley X as a case study for a larger discussion and presents a continuum of common experiences and treatment of individuals with disabilities within a context of medical decision making. The report explores the potential and actual conflict of interest that medical decision making may present between a parent and his or her child. It describes the vital role that the judicial system has in ensuring that the civil and human rights of individuals with disabilities are protected. The report discusses how the deprivation of these rights is harm within and of itself and that all individuals have substantive rights regardless of the severity of their disability. It goes on to outline how discrimination inherently causes harm to both the person who experiences the discriminatory conduct and society as a whole. Finally, the report presents a series of recommendations for how the legal and medical systems at the local, state, and national level, including protection and advocacy agencies, ethics committees, institutional review boards, and the courts can perform critical “watchdog” functions to ensure that the human and civil rights of individuals with disabilities are protected.
Read the full report
Download the executive summary and recommendations
View the report webpage here –
http://www.ndrn.org/en/media/publications/483-devaluing-people-with-disabilities.html.
Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh
www.drnpa.org