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The Mentally Retarded: Recognizing Their Rights by Emil G. Brisson Emil G. Brisson is a staff member of the Hunterdon Developmental Center, a state facility for the retarded in Clinton, New Jersey. This article appeared in the Christian Century, January 18, 1984, p. 37. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock. About
a year ago, I came across a brief news item in our diocesan newspaper that
referred to the work of a group called the Society of the Holy Innocents. The
name would have been welcomed by leaders in the field of mental retardation
40 years ago. But no more. The image of mentally retarded people as innocent,
childlike creatures who can do no deliberate wrong is only one of many
simplistic ways of describing them that have done more harm than good. Dr.
Wolf Wolfensberger has identified a number of the traditional concepts that
our society has had of mentally retarded people (The Principle of
Normalization in Human Services [National Institute on Mental
Retardation, 1972]). He points out that we have thought of these people as
being less than human; as creatures to be pitied, ridiculed or feared; as
eternal children; or as having a disease. Each of these images dehumanizes
them. |
Recent federal and state laws and court
decisions have added authority to the current philosophy that the mentally
retarded are persons who have legal and civil rights under the U.S.
Constitution, just as all other citizens do. P.L. (Public Law) 94-103, the
Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act (1975), identifies
the rights of mentally retarded people, including the right to training to
develop their capabilities to the maximum. P.L. 94-142 (1975) assures that all
handicapped children will receive an appropriate education. Similar laws have
been passed in most states, and numerous court decisions have proclaimed that
mentally retarded people must be given the opportunity for a full life in the
“least restrictive environment. For most of them, this means being in a home
and a community like yours and mine.
Those
who think of mentally retarded people as living in, and needing to live in,
large institutions should consider the following facts. Most of them
(approximately 90 per cent) are mildly retarded (I.Q. 55 to 69), and in the
majority of cases, self-supporting. Most moderately retarded people (I.Q. 40 to
54) can live in a home environment and work successfully in a sheltered
workshop (many corporations subcontract routine, repetitious jobs to such
workshops). A number of studies have shown that the mentally retarded become
more independent in small community programs where they are exposed to the
experiences of everyday life. This “community” experience may mean living in
their family’s home, in a supervised or unsupervised apartment, in a supervised
group home with other mentally retarded people, or in any home in the
neighborhood. The experience also may involve working in any one of a variety
of competitive jobs that nonhandicapped people also hold, working in a
sheltered workshop, or attending a program that teaches self-help skills like
cooking and doing laundry, as well as various prevocational skills.
The thrust over the past 15 to 20 years
has been to move mentally handicapped people out of institutions and into such
community programs. This movement has been greeted with enormous enthusiasm by
some, with overwhelming opposition by others. Neighborhoods where group homes
are to be located have frequently been cautious and somewhat fearful about what
this will mean for their image and for property values. But many people have
taken a much more positive attitude toward their mentally retarded neighbors
once they have gotten to know them.
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The
struggle for recognition of the rights of mentally handicapped people is
reminiscent of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Both fought for the
right of all people to be treated as human beings, able to live and work
where they choose. John Gliedman and William Roth, in The Unexpected
Minority: Handicapped Children in America (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1980), have demonstrated the numerous similarities between the prejudice toward
black people and toward the handicapped. |
The civil rights movement received a
great deal of support from churches and clergy. Ministers, priests, nuns, monks
and laypeople prayed, discussed, sang and marched to help win fair and equal
treatment for black people. Seeing black people as their brothers and sisters
in the Lord, they, attempted to live according to Jesus’ admonition that “you
shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
As Christians, we must learn to treat
mentally retarded people with dignity -- not with pity or ridicule -- and to
help change our society’s attitudes toward them.
Social change occurs in part because laws
and court decisions mandate a change in the way people act. But it also comes
about because people’s attitudes arc transformed. Laws and court decisions
require that black people be treated as equals. However, it is obvious that
blacks are still discriminated against, because many whites still do not accept
them as equals. The same is true of the treatment of the mentally retarded.
Their rights may be protected by law, but they will never be treated with
dignity unless people’s attitudes change.
Churches should play a major role in
fostering greater acceptance of and respect for the mentally retarded. Consider
the following suggestions for action that could be taken by congregations:
• Encourage clergy to give sermons that
highlight the dignity of all people, including mentally retarded children and
adults.
• Sponsor educational programs for church
groups and for the public, providing information about the capabilities and
needs of mentally handicapped people. Provide information about current
programs for these people.
• Make integration of mentally retarded
people into regular church services and programs the primary method of providing
services for them. Provide special programs only when necessary.
• Integrate mentally retarded children
and adolescents into religious education programs. Provide special classes for
those not able to participate in regular classes.
• Encourage mentally retarded children
and adolescents to join in church-related activities such as Boy Scouts, Girl
Scouts and youth groups.
• Make special programs for mentally
retarded people appropriate for their chronological age. (Adults should not be
provided with childish Sunday school fare.)
• Provide moral support for residential
and work programs that are planned for your community or neighborhood. This can
be done at public hearings held to inform the community about programs that
plan to locate in your area.
Many of these suggestions can also be
applied to other handicapped people: those with cerebral palsy, blindness,
deafness, mental illness, amputated limbs and so on. Churches need to become
more aware of the difficulties that handicapped people face, to become more
involved in bringing Christ into their lives, and to become more active in
challenging the nonhandicapped to recognize their responsibilities as
Christians to their handicapped fellow Christians.