Document 34: "Plank 7: Disabled Women," from National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, The Spirit of Houston: The First National Women's Conference (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), pp. 32-33.

p. 32

PLANK 7
DISABLED WOMEN

The President, Congress, and State and local governments should rigorously enforce all current legislation that affects the lives of disabled women.

   The President, Congress, and the administration should expeditiously implement the recommendations of the White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals and develop comprehensive programs for that purpose.

   Disabled women should have access to education, training, and employment based on their needs and interests rather than on the preconceived notions of others.

   The Federal Government should enact legislation which will provide higher income levels so that disabled women can afford to live independently and at a decent standard of living. The disabled woman must have the right to determine for herself whether she will live in or out of an institutional setting. Funds and services should be available to make independent living a reality.

   Congress should appropriate sufficient funds to insure the development of service programs controlled by disabled people.

   Disabled women should have the right to have and keep their children and have equal rights to adoption and foster care.

   Congress should mandate health training and research programs focused on the health needs of the disabled.

   Information developed by disabled women should be disseminated to medical professionals and women so that all women can make decisions about children based on knowledge rather than on fear.

   National health care legislation must provide for the unique requirements of disabled women without reference to income.

   Congress should enact legislation to remove all work disincentives for all disabled individuals who wish to have paid employment.

   The President and Congress should work closely with disabled individuals in the development of the welfare reform act and all other legislation concerning disabled persons.

   Medicaid and Medicare should cover all the medical services and supplies that are needed by disabled women.

   The President and Congress should encourage all States to utilize Title 20 funds for the provision of attendant care and other such services for disabled women.

   The President and Congress should enact legislation to include disabled women under the 1964 Civil Rights Act and afford them judicial remedy

   The President and Congress and International Women's Year must recognize the additional discrimination disabled women face when they are members of racial, ethnic, and sexual minority groups, and appropriate steps must be taken to protect their rights.

   In the passage of the national Plan of Action, the word "woman" should be defined as including all women with disabilities. The term "bilingual" should be defined as including sign language and interpreters for the deaf. The term "barriers" against women and "access" should be defined as including architectural barriers and communications barriers.

   Congress and the President should support U.S. participation in and funding for the International Year of the Handicapped as proclaimed by the United Nations for 1981.

p. 33

Background:

"…many disabled women are being deprived of their rights,
and society is being deprived of their talents and abilities."

   As many as 20 million women may suffer the double discrimination of sex plus disability. Employers, landlords, credit institutions, and schools exclude them from a participation of which they are capable. Laws enacted to prohibit discrimination and to require special physical facilities have not been enforced, and there are no provisions for the special problems of disabled women. This includes the right to bear children. Too many doctors assume that a disabled woman is incapable of bearing, rearing, or adopting a child. Because they are denied access to education, training, and employment, many disabled women are being deprived of their rights, and society is being deprived of their talents and abilities.

The numbers Statistics on handicapped persons are hard to obtain. Only since 1970 has the census asked about handicaps, and then only in a five percent sampling. Based on that sample, it was estimated that one out of 11 adults was disabled, or about five million women. When statistics have been gathered, sex is often not indicated. Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 defines the handicapped person as one who has a mental or physical impairment or who is regarded as having such an impairment.

Recent Laws Within recent years, several laws have been enacted to guarantee basic rights to handicapped individuals. The passage of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act with its civil rights Section 504, the Revenue Sharing Act of 1972, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, the Urban Mass Transit Act of 1970 as amended, and the earlier Architectural Barriers Act (1968) should have enabled the handicapped to enter the mainstream of American life.

No enforcement   But enforcement has been poor because most of the programs had no compliance system built into them. During oversight hearings last year before the Subcommittee on the Handicapped, extensive testimony was given that there are no efficient procedures for handling complaints, and that complaints are dealt with very slowly, if at all. Since then, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph A. Califano, Jr. signed the regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act on April 28, 1977.

   Enforcement has also been poor for the Architectural Barriers Act, which mandates that all Federal buildings and all buildings built using Federal funds after 1968 must have access for handicapped persons. The compliance board for this act is composed of the very agencies the act is supposed to regulate, such as the Department of Transportation (DOT).

Public transportation   One of the most important issues for disabled persons is access to public transportation. Twelve consumer organizations have filed suit against DOT for failing to require low-floor, wide-door ramped buses for subsidized public transport (Transbus Case). Because of this suit and others filed throughout the country. Transportation Secretary Brock Adams in April, 1977 mandated that all transit operators have to buy accessible buses after September 1979.

   But even the current regulations are inadequate. As it now stands, in subways, for example, the station facility must be accessible, the elevator to the subway car must be accessible, but there is no requirement for access to the subway car.

Education   In 1971 the Pennsylvania Association of Retarded Children challenged the State's policy excluding retarded and disabled children from school, and for the first time a court ruled that the State had to provide an education for all children. This and other court cases led to the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. But enforcement on the local level is not easy, and it is not unusual for the parent of a disabled child to have to take the local school board to court. Across the country, many thousands of children get less than their constitutional right, educationally, and some get virtually no education.

Employment and vocational training   Disabled women suffer the double discrimination of often being trained for less skilled jobs because they are female. Disabled women are much less likely to have paid employment than men. In Jobs for the Disabled (1977), Levitan and Taggart found that 60 percent of disabled men have paid employment, compared with 29 percent of disabled women. These figures are based on 1972 social security statistics.

   Under the new HEW regulation, employers will no longer be allowed to give preemployment physical examinations. Employment cannot be denied for physical reasons unless the disability is job-related. Fringe benefits can no longer be modified or withdrawn unless there is an actuarial basis for doing so.

Health care   Under the new guidelines, doctors with Medicaid or Medicare patients, and those who have offices in a clinic or hospital built with Federal funds, must have an accessible office.

   The Disabled Women's Caucus has asked that Medicare and Medicaid coverage be extended to cover interpreters and attendants necessary for health care. The Caucus also notes that birth control clinics do not have information in braille or no tapes. Doctors have ignored a disabled woman's right to bear or not bear children. A disabled woman who receives any kind of financial aid is often urged to give up her child, and some States have laws which do not allow disabled persons to adopt, even though disabled women may be capable mothers.

   

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