Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

73their right to social participation. 176 Out of this foment emerged a disability rightsmovement that claimed its civil rights amidst the overall atmosphere of politicalactivism of various oppressed and/or minority groupings, such as women andAfro-Americans, throughout the 1960s and 1970s. And so by the mid-1980scountries like Australia were enacting legislation that embraced a rights-basedagenda rather than relying on the more protectionist and custodial discourse. 177The disability rights movement pointed to barriers that have contributedto institutionalised, societal discrimination, such as prevailing forms of physicalinfrastructure and attitudes, 178 and the subsequent loss of individual autonomy. Indoing so, disability and the attendant rights to which people with disabilities layclaim, have been strongly placed in the realm of socio-political construct. 179Nonetheless, it can be argued that in the struggle for disability rights,those who articulated their claim for an autonomous lifestyle have been heardmore clearly than those whose words lacked coherence. Social historian KathrynEllis has claimed that the emerging environment of disability protest elevated therights of those with physical disabilities over and above the rights of those withintellectual disabilities. She asserts that the,... privileging of the cognitive, … arguably underpins the civilrights agenda pursued by the disability movement. After all, civilrights are based on the notion of the autonomous human beingwhose capability for rational thought (and bodily control) meansthat the individual should be allowed to make decisions andchoices for him or herself, provided they do not impinge on therights of others to do likewise. 180Such an argument affirms the capacity for reason to be a defining measureof full and acceptable personhood.The other concern is that, as some assert, “it has become a way ofconstructing disability into an identity which is based upon membership of a176 Eiesland, Nancy. The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability.(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 54-55.177 Clapton & Fitzgerald. The History of Disability, sec.4, par.2.178 McNamara, Laurence. "Ethics, Ageing and Disability." In Ageing, Disability andSpirituality: Addressing the Challenge of Disability in Later Life, edited by ElizabethMacKinlay, 36-44. (London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2008), 41.179 Clapton & Fitzgerald. The History of Disability, sec.4, par.1.180 Ellis, Kathryn. "Disability Rights in Practice: The Relationship between Human Rightsand Social Rights in Contemporary Social Care." Disability & Society 20, no. 7 (2005): 691-704, 701.Bracketed words are those of author.