Women with Disabilities: Barriers and Facilitators to Accessing ...

WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES: BARRIERS AND FACILITATORS TO ACCESSING SERVICES DURING PREGNANCY,CHILDBIRTH AND EARLY MOTHERHOODSchool of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College DublinAppendicesAppendix 1 – Definitions of disabilityHow the term ‘disability’ is defined and understood can have implications for howpeople with disabilities are treated and perceived. The authors understand thatthere is a tendency to view people with disabilities as one homogenous group andare aware that a range of factors such as gender, class, sexuality and agestructure the experience of people with disabilities. There are many definitions of‘disability’ and the issue of a definition has proven to be one of the mostcontentious issues facing the delegates of the United Nations committee on aComprehensive and Integral International Convention on Protection andPromotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities. In 2006 thefollowing definition was proposed as a ‘working proposal’‘Disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments,conditions, or illnesses and the environmental and attitudinal barriers they face.Such impairments, conditions, or illnesses may be permanent, temporary,intermittent, or imputed, and those that are physical, sensory, psychosocial,neurological, medical or intellectual.’The International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (ICF) providedthe following definition of disability:‘Disability is a decrement in functioning at the body, individual or societal level thatarises when an individual with a health condition encounters barriers in theenvironment’.Either of the 2 above definitions clearly express the essential structure of theconcept of disability as a result of an interaction between features of an individualwith a health condition and features of the physical, individual and societalenvironment. It clearly recognises the 3 dimensions of disability (body, individualand societal levels) to increase inclusiveness and to be applicable to the full rangeand diversity of disability experience at the same time. It further ensuresinclusiveness and the complete coverage of all relevant disability rights issues, bydefining disability as to apply to a person with impairment alone, or an activitylimitation alone, or a participation restriction alone (WHO, 2001).The definition used in the Disability Discrimination Act, 1995 (United KingdomParliament,1995) is as follows:‘A physical impairment that has a substantial and long term adverse effect on aperson’s ability to carry out normal day to day activities’.158