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Amy Anderson's avatar

"Our autonomy is always limited. Our dignity is not." I've been reflecting on versions of this because I recently met up with one of my best friends from college who is a quadriplegic and uses a motorized wheelchair. I hadn't seen him in several years due to a combination of having babies and COVID, but seeing him recently reminded me of all the recon work that his group of friends used to have to do in order to do simple activities with him. If we wanted to go out to dinner, it wasn't enough to call ahead and tell the restaurant we had a handicapped person in our party - more than once a restaurant that told us they were "handicap accessible" had a step up to the front door or they had put our reserved table up or down a set of steps that he couldn't navigate. Entire sections of our college town didn't have curb cuts on the sidewalks, so he couldn't easily cross the street at crosswalks, we were always jaywalking from one driveway or alley to another. (I realize this dates me but all of this was before Google Street View and Yelp, so our ability to research these things beforehand was limited.) Anyway, I showed up with my kids to meet him at a park a few weeks ago and realized I hadn't done any of the research that used to be second nature; there were no curb cuts and no paved trail from the parking lot to the playground and picnic area, no handicap-accessible bathroom, etc. But what had I researched? That the playground would be shaded in the afternoon sun and that there was a port-a-potty available, both things I thought about in the context of MY children and THEIR needs. How quickly I forgot someone else's needs! I was heartily ashamed of myself. Fortunately we were able to park the van carrying my friend so he could motor up the hill to the playground and picnic area and we all had a lovely time together, but two weeks later I'm still reflecting on it. I think Leah may have meant "thinking less of those who need more" in the way of not valuing them as fully human, but in my case, I literally spent less time thinking about someone whose needs (which I was quite familiar with! I cannot claim ignorance!) were much greater than mine and my children's.

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Sophia's avatar

Oh, this is such an important conversation, and again I have to recommend Raising A Rare Girl to all and sundry, because it's so good at recognizing that disabled peoples' needs aren't completely alien to the human experience, they're just sometimes more visibly intense versions, so dignity can't be something we earn by doing things --- no one, in the long run, would have any at all --- but must be innate. Or present even before birth.

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