Americans with Disabilities

by Leslie Pickering Francis (Editor), Anita Silvers (Editor)

In this groundbreaking work, leading philosophers, legal theorists, bioethicists, and policy makers offer incisive looks into the philosophical and moral foundations of disability law and policy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Disability

442 pages, Paperback

First published July 6, 2000

About the author

Leslie Pickering Francis is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah.

Reviews

[Lightreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of themed essays evaluating the ADA ten years out. Interdisciplinary and generally strong, with pieces on moral philosophy, law, sociology, and medicine. But ultimately I found it uneven and frustrating in that way a book written predominately by able-bodied academics is when I'm a disabled occasional political activist.

Some pieces were excellent – Ron Amanson's "Biological Normality and the ADA" deconstructs the categories of normal and abnormal function in ways analogous to previous deconstructions of race as a biological category. But then we have pieces like Lenard Davis's "Go to the Margins of the Class: Hate Crimes and the ADA," which is terrifying as it discusses the epidemic of sexual and physical violence against people with disabilities, and utterly jaw-droppingly enraging as it blithely proclaims an end to racial and gender discrimination in this country. I just . . . I don't even!

It is a good collection, and well organized. I found most useful the sections on medicine – healthcare cost-rationing as a violation of the ADA, wrongful birth and wrongful life lawsuits ('if my doctor had told me x, I would have had an abortion,'), etc. I got bogged down in the opening sections, because I have a pretty low tolerance for political philosophy these days. I am beginning to have a knee-jerk near-allergic reaction to Rawls and theories of justice and historical counterfactuals. These days they make me want to shake people and explain what the word "empiricism" actually means, and tell them to get down from the ivory tower for a few days and go feed the fucking homeless or something. 'Hem, where was I?

Right, good book, a bit frustrating, a bit written about disprivilige from a place of privilege, you know the drill.

[Jordan Varey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as part of a policy course at California Baptist University. As a Canadian I was concerned that it would be irrelevant to my situation but was pleasantly surprised. The book is comprised of several short essays covering disciplines of sociology, policy, political and moral philosophy, and some history surrounding disability rights in the United states and abroad. The last section even contains three essays comparing the ADA to similar legislation in Canada, Australia and the U.K. Overall the book was very helpful for the those hoping for an introductory grasp of some of the relation between theory and practice regarding disability policy generally and the ADA specifically. I cannot stress enough that this is a must read for aspiring disability scholars in any part of the world despite what the emblazoned flag may suggest.