Blackwell Reference Online

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Almost forty years ago, Jacobus tenBroek, professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley, defended the legal right of people with disabilities “to be abroad in the land” (ten Broek, 1966 : 841). In the intervening years, disability has come to the foreground of the landscape of bioethics and law. In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 defines “disability” as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of an individual's major life activities, a record of such an impairment, or being regarded as having such an impairment. The ADA prohibits employment discrimination against persons with disabilities so defined, mandates inclusion in publicly provided benefits, and bans exclusion from public accommodations. Both the understanding of disability in the ADA and its specific requirements remain controversial, however ( Francis and Silvers, 2000 ). In the United Kingdom, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA, 1995) conceptualizes disability as a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term effect on a person's ability to carry out normal daily activities. The DDA seeks to address employment discrimination, discrimination in the provision of goods and services, discrimination in access to premises, and discrimination in education and transportation. The DDA, too, is criticized both for its ambition ... log in or subscribe to read full text