Abstract
The prevalence of ableism has been a significant concern in the US. Ableism has been underlined as discrimination against certain people due to their physical and cognitive disability. This process has enforced the review of the US legal framework as ableism has distorted the inclusivity parameters among a particular category of individuals. The enactment of the US law sought to ensure the disabled have equal opportunities in society and can access services despite their physical and intellectual disabilities. The practice of eugenics has portrayed a theoretical framework that determines the understanding of the current social positioning. The theory asserts that meaningful measures are suitable to reduce the genetic inferiority measures across the human race. These mechanisms are attributed to the foundational aspects determining the need to include the disabled within the service delivery framework. The prevailing stereotypes and discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities require an appropriate means to enhance proper health management parameters within society.
Keywords: Ableism, disability, discrimination, eugenics, prejudice.
Ableism
Ableism has emerged as discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities following the belief that typical abilities are superior. This aspect is rooted in the assumption that people with disabilities require fixation as their flaws define them. Treatment among people with disabilities in the past and the present has been a significant concern in the US. According to Nieminen (2022), the social disability model is suitable for understanding disability by emphasizing that the condition is constructed in the socio-cultural context. The legal framework has been enforced to ascertain the effectiveness of treating ableism. The passage of varying legal guidelines affected the defined translation of ableism in the US. The interpretation of the medical standards of care ascertains the critical parameters supporting the legal positioning in the decision-making process.
Literature Review
Ableism is frequently used to identify prejudice and discrimination against people with disabilities. According to Bê (2019), ableism refers to the larger framework governing society’s understanding of the disability facets. This aspect describes the ideology that disabled people are not equal to nondisabled. Similar terms to ableism include sanism, disablism, audism, and mentalism. This action has affected the interpersonal, cultural, and structural framework through the attitudes of accessibility. Ableism administers a negative perception of disability. The underlying underestimation is attached to the view that being nondisabled is an ideal option, whereas disability results in adverse societal positioning. The medical model approach determines the legal positioning following the discrimination of people with disabilities. The historical perspective of ableism depicts the defined policies and practices which influence the lives of the disabled.
The definition of ableism has determined how people with intellectual disabilities were treated in the past and present times across the US. Over the past a hundred years, treating people with disabilities has been shocking and traumatizing. According to Bogart and Dunn (2019), before the 1930s, the disabled were perceived as defective and unhealthy. This aspect resulted in immense neglect and abandonment, affecting their physical and emotional status. Friedman and Awsumb (2019) posit that social suppression against people with disability (ableism) is prominent leading to social, economic, psychological, and environmental flaws. The position of disabled people in society was treated with no regard and was due to a lack of understanding of their condition. Families with disabled people encountered high levels of neglect in society, thus fostering a limited inclusivity pattern in the development models. Also, some families rejected their disabled relatives, which generated perceived stigmatization that distorted the defined social status among the disabled.
Most people with disabilities underwent starvation for a lack of acceptability patterns within the family setting. Also, families admitted disabled patients across the healthcare institutions against their will as they were perceived as a burden. This process impeded the social development patterns as prejudice was the primary aspect affecting the disadvantaged groups. According to Jóhannsdóttir et al. (2022), a high attainable health standard is a crucial right of every human without discrimination. Disabled people faced deprivation of rights accompanied by the rising instances of low social inclusivity parameters. The continued limitations on the disabled individuals resulted in agony for inclusivity among the disabled. The transitioning framework was thus a significant contribution to a change in the perception of the disabled.
The Federal government developed a financial compensation model for the return soldiers by providing vocational rehabilitation. According to Bogart and Dunn (2019), in the 1940s and 1950s, pioneering rights-based organizations were launched following widespread injuries and disabilities due to World War 2. The underlying transition resulted in establishing government-funded rehabilitation programs to meet the needs of disabled individuals throughout the US. Integrating evidence-based practices into the treatment mechanisms enhanced meaningful research into proper intervention procedures to reduce the underlying prejudice against the disabled. The UN passed a declaration in 1975 on the rights of disabled people, seeking to underline an intervention mechanism for individuals with disabilities. This legal framework was passed by the human rights and equal opportunity discrimination act in 1966 to strengthen the consideration mechanisms for people with disabilities.
The law indicates that one must not be discriminated against due to physical disability. According to Bogart and Dunn (2019), the present treatment among people with disabilities is encompassed through the 2010 Equality Act. The current disability framework is based on an inclusivity pattern enclosed within the Equality Act. Individuals with disabilities are covered upon diagnosis, indicating the presence of a progressive condition. This treatment is unlike in the past, where high cases of discrimination and prejudice were reported. The clause requires proof of disability which thoroughly scrutinizes the individual’s physical and mental condition. This mechanism harnesses a comprehensive determination of disabled people’s health status.
Analysis
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passage seeks to ascertain proper inclusivity measures among people with disability. According to Bogart and Dunn (2019), the enactment of ADA in 1990 by President George Bush sought to enhance inclusivity among people with disabilities. The law sought to forbid discrimination against the disabled and ascertains equality in employment, accommodation, transportation, and access to general infrastructural benefits. This law applies within the US congress and ascertains a responsive guideline to enhance meaningful inclusivity among the disabled.
Protection by ADA requires an individual to have a disability or close connection with a disabled relative. ADA defines a person with a disability as having a cognitive or physical impairment that limits the administration of significant life activities. The law also ascertains disability in a person with a historical record of a particular impairment as perceived by others. According to Friedman and Awsumb (2019), although people with disability have obtained crucial strides in their rights, they are still socially undermined. Integrating the disability framework enforces the need to determine profound protection under ADA. The law’s provision imposes varying charges based on disability which are filed to enhance meaningful compliance. The underlying legal framework ensures people with disabilities have a place in society and can engage in all the activities a typical person can do regardless of the disability.
In the transitioning period, the practice of eugenics was perceived as a means to improve human nature by determining their physical and mental wellbeing. The eugenics model emerged to characterize disability as people understand it currently. According to the theoretical framework, people are perceived as fit or unfit. According to Jóhannsdóttir et al. (2022), the theoretical discussion on internalized suppression develop through the critical racism perspective. The unfit are perceived as an inferior species, and efforts should be made to eliminate instances of genetic inferiority.
In the past, eugenics was used to justify the mass killings following the Nazi Holocaust. The end of the second world war encompassed the policy structure in the Western world. Jóhannsdóttir et al. (2022) opine that disability activists have spent much effort outlining the societal and political mechanisms contributing to the obstacles to disability discrimination over the decades. The deprived historical aspects constituted forced sterilizations, human testing, institutionalization, and withholding of medical care in the US. Eugenics is not only crucial to understanding the historical development of disabled people, but the mass incarnations of several oppression systems such as sexism, racism, criminalization, and homophobia.
Reproductive care is positioned through meaningful standards designed to ascertain professionalism in healthcare. This aspect derives substantive reproductive health through professional guidelines within the healthcare setting. For instance, implementing a substantive standard of care encompassed through the healthcare management system ensures that professionals comply with the legal guidelines. This aspect has been ascertained by determining the healthcare’s procedural laws enhancing a unified healthcare management structure. According to Villines (2021), several care centers rely on professional medical standards to ascertain the effectiveness of the underlying health management mechanism. This aspect is suitable for assessing the healthcare guidelines which enforce a substantive engagement model within the healthcare environment.
The other aspect of the reproductive care standard includes determining the patient’s perspective. This aspect is harnessed through satisfactory measures ascertaining the defined performance standards for the healthcare management structure. Patients assess standard care based on the significance of health management guidelines. These parameters harness the effectiveness of professional standards in ascertaining a meaningful health assessment model. The determination of a profound health management structure requires the integration of suitable wellness measures that will counter ableism.
The different levels of capacity consent include the legal and informal parameters. The legal procedures ascertain a profound wellness mechanism that provides reflective health management guidelines. Villines (2021) asserts that the informal systems comprise unstructured policies requiring the consolidation of profound health systems to ascertain a functional health system. The underlying type of consent comprises the involvement of genetic counselors to facilitate meaningful understanding and enhance decision-making within the social setting.
The different categories of individuals over 18 years old and with intellectual disabilities include people with autism, down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, and fetal alcohol disorder. These categories of individuals are subject to the facilitation of equal healthcare as those without cognitive and intellectual disabilities. According to Villines (2021), relational decision-making involves an advanced means to emphasize the defined metrics of thorough research and evaluation procedures. This process ascertains the effect of meaningful choices based on factual information. Decision-making among people without intellectual disorders results in an appropriate outcome. The standard reproductive medicine options for people in the US are encompassed within the substantive framework determining the viability of the healthcare management procedures. The options seek to enhance sexual education and support through invitro fertilization across the US.
Conclusion
Ableism has evolved as a form of discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities due to the belief that typical beliefs are appropriate. This stereotype has historically transitioned due to the need to enhance inclusivity without discrimination. The painful restrain within the family affected the defined social inclusivity parameters and thus limited the individuals’ social sustenance parameters. Protection of people with intellectual disabilities fostered the defined performance parameters for the legal system.
Recommendation
The US government should administer a continuous revision of the ADA to enhance stricter inclusivity patterns for people with disabilities. This aspect should include a recurrent awareness framework to ascertain the need to strengthen inclusivity among individuals with disabilities. The government should also encourage private agencies through funding to enhance involvement among people with disabilities. This process should be structured to ensure a supportive framework for efficient health management mechanisms among the disabled. Ableism should be perceived as a means to improve sustenance parameters among disabled people. According to Janz (2019), several disability scholars advocate for introducing and increasing the inclusion of disabled people into the medical curricula. This process should include standard performance guidelines that enhance an appropriate health management model for the disabled. The government should thus ascertain appropriate measures to ensure individuals with a disability have proper access to services like a nondisabled person.
References
Bê, A. (2019). Ableism and disablism in higher education: the case of two students living with chronic illnesses. Alter, 13(3), 179-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alter.2019.03.004
Bogart, K. R., & Dunn, D. S. (2019). Ableism special issue introduction. Journal of Social Issues, 75(3), 650-664. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12354
Friedman, C., & Awsumb, J. M. (2019). The symbolic Ableism scale. Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal, 15(1), 1-20. https://www.rdsjournal.org/index.php/journal/article/view/814
Janz, H. L. (2019). Ableism: the undiagnosed malady afflicting medicine. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, 191(17), 478-479. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.180903
Jóhannsdóttir, Á., Egilson, S. Þ., & Haraldsdóttir, F. (2022). Implications of internalized ableism for the health and wellbeing of disabled young people. Sociology of Health & Illness, 44(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13425
Nieminen, J. H. (2022). Unveiling ableism and disablism in assessment: a critical analysis of disabled students’ experiences of assessment and assessment accommodations. Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00857-1
Villines, Z. (2021, November 7). What is ableism, and what is its impact? Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/ableism#impact
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