Imagine how shocking it would be to pick up a newspaper today and read a front-page story about a "colored" or "Negro" politician or businessman. Yet, the print and broadcast media still describe people with disabilities with equally archaic and demeaning phrases such as "handicapped," "differently abled," "challenged" and "special."
Furthermore, while journalists do not include a person's ethnic or racial minority group status in articles unless it is a crime report or pertinent to the story, a disability inevitably gets mentioned regardless of the story's topic.
Here are some guidelines for writing about people with disabilities.
Dr. Theresia Degener, legal adviser to the German Council
of Centres for Self-Determined Living and lecturer
at the Universities of Frankfurt, Mainz and Leipzig
Princeton University's Center for Human Values recently employed Dr. Peter Singer as a professor of Bioethics. Dr. Singer states "Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all."
Report to the ENIL Board Meeting
8th March 2003 Southampton
by Frances Hasler, 2003-03
The Department of Health has published monitoring figures for direct payments
usage, based on information from September 2002. They show an overall growth
in numbers since 2001 from 5423 to 7882. The most dramatic increase in take
up is among carers (more than four times as many as previously). Some groups – people
with learning difficulties, mental health service users and older people – have
roughly doubled their numbers. Growth among people with physical impairment
has been smaller – just 30%.
by Vic Finkelstein (Leeds University Centre for Disability Studies)
In this presentation I have tried to provide a background sample of where I came from and the issues that I think we were trying to deal with at the time. I hope, too, that I can introduce you to some of the outstanding problems we face in our struggle for a social interpretation of disability.
Report to the ENIL Board Meeting, 8th March 2003 Southampton
by John Evans, February 2003
There have been a number of developments in Independent Living and Direct Payments in the UK over the last few years. I shall try and highlight a few of the main issues.
In some respects we now have a Government that is committed to expanding Direct Payments considerably. This is actually to the extent that Direct Payments are now being made available to a number of other user groups. Please see the figures attached to this Report to give you an idea about this.
