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A place at the table |
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By The Catholic Spirit
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Wednesday, 28 July 2010 |
Church's work on disabilities helped bring about law marking 20th year
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Analysis
Nancy Frazier O’Brien
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When the Americans with Disabilities Act was being debated in the U.S. Senate 20 years ago, excerpts from the pastoral statement on people with disabilities issued by the U.S. bishops 12 years earlier were read on the Senate floor in support of its passage.
“It is not enough merely to affirm the rights of people with disabilities,” the document says. “We must actively work to make them real in the fabric of modern society. Recognizing that individuals with disabilities have a claim to our respect because they are persons, because they share in the one redemption of Christ, and because they contribute to our society by their activity within it, the church must become an advocate for and with them.”
For most of her adult life, Jan Benton has been doing just that. But the
executive director of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability
is not sure the church’s message is getting out to those who need to
hear it most.
“Our challenge and our goal is to have people know we exist so they know
that the church does care,” Benton told Catholic News Service during a
July 13 interview in her Washington office.
“That’s the painful thing, when people say, ‘I never heard of you,’ ”
she said. “We don’t want them to think the church is not there for them.
We want them to know the church is there and has many opportunities”
for them.
Raising expectations
When the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law on July 26,
1990, it gave people with disabilities “a place at the table” and
raised expectations for their lives, Benton said.
She spoke about an 18-year-old friend born with serious disabilities,
including hands that grow from her shoulders. But when Benton saw the
young woman recently, her fingernails were painted for the high school
prom she had attended and she was preparing to begin college at Bucknell
University in Pennsylvania.
“Her generation grew up expecting that they had rights, that they could do whatever they set their minds to,” she said.
An estimated 54 million Americans have a disability, including 5 percent
of children under 18 and 38 percent of adults 65 and older, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau. More than 3 million people 15 and older use a
wheelchair, while another 10 million use a cane, crutches or walker.
The ADA protects the rights of people with disabilities to equal access
in employment; state and local government programs and services; places
of public accommodation such as businesses, transportation and nonprofit
service providers; and telecommunications.
But as with the implementation of the civil rights legislation of the
1960s, reality sometimes falls short of the law and the expectations it
raised, Benton said.
Instead of receiving the respect they deserve, some people with
disabilities have been subject to a “misguided compassion” that
encourages the elderly to consider physician-assisted suicide and the
parents of a child likely to be born with disabilities to abort the
child, she said.
Upcoming events
» Archbishop’s Annual Mass for Persons with Disabilities, 3 p.m.,
Sept. 12 at St. Mary’s Chapel at St. Paul Seminary. Sing-along begins at
2:30 p.m. For more information, call the archdiocesan Office for
Marriage, Family and Life at (651) 291-4543. Or visit www.archspm.org/family.
»
Webinar on “Poor Prenatal Diagnosis,” sponsored by the National
Catholic Partnership on Disability. Noon to 1:30 p.m., Oct. 5. Visit www.ncpd.org for information or to register. Or call (202) 529-2933 or (202) 529-2934 (TTY).
For reflection
» How does my Catholic faith influence the way I think about people with disabilities?
» In what ways has the Americans with Disabilities Act changed things for the better?
» What could my parish or school do better to meet the needs of people with disabilities?
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“We’re so blessed to be in a church that can counter these arguments, a
church that says every person is worthy of respect,” she added. “It’s
easy to be able to argue for life.”
Benton, a secular Franciscan, witnessed the importance of helping
parents cope with a poor prenatal diagnosis when a couple in her
community, expecting their third child, got devastating news more than
four years ago following a routine sonogram.
The child they were expecting had a heart defect and their doctor
advised them to “schedule your abortion on the way out of the door,”
Benton recalled. The doctor “painted the worst possible picture” of a
child who would be unable to feed herself or interact in any meaningful
way with her family and the world, she added.
Now Benton brags about her goddaughter Rose, describing her at a recent
lunch they shared as “happily smiling, able to eat, running and playing .
. . like any other sweet 4-year-old.”
As Rose and her family have confronted various serious health
challenges, “our secular community was able to be a little support for
them and they’ve known that the church recognizes the value of what they
did and defends them in their decision,” Benton said.
Challenges still
To help combat the attitudes that leave many parents thinking they have
no alternative than to abort a child who might face challenges, the
National Catholic Partnership on Disability is sponsoring a webinar Oct.
5 on the issue of poor prenatal diagnosis (see box).
Some parents have told Benton that they support the church’s teaching
that every child is important and decide not to abort a child likely to
face difficulties, but when it comes time to find a school or
sacramental preparation for their child, they say, “I can’t find a
place for my child.”
“That’s what we [in the church] need to be all about,” supporting those
families in finding what they need for themselves and their children
spiritually, emotionally and in other ways, Benton said.
The October webinar is part of a series begun three years ago that
educates more than 2,000 people a year over the Internet about issues
affecting those with disabilities, ranging from liturgical design to
mental illness to ways to adapt catechetical programs to meet the needs
of all.
“We want people with any disability to be nourished in the faith and to
be able to contribute to the life of the parish community,” Benton said.
Nancy Frazier O’Brien is deputy editor of Catholic News Service.
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