The recent Supreme Court ruling in the ADA is troubling for anyone with a disability. As a person who has a disability, it is somewhat beyond logic to assume that people with disabilities will not risk their health to work.

The reality is, most folks with physical disabilities who work do not have a choice.  As nice as the ADA may look on paper – it reality – it doesn’t translate well when applied to a competitive workforce. An example of this doesn’t even have to begin at work, but before many of us even begin work, in High School. I remember my senior year, while taking meds that made me extremely fatigued, I had a paper route that required me to wake at 5 AM. There were no sick days, no excuses for “my body is exhausted.” I remember that I studied for quarterly exams till about 2 am, and made more than a few cups of coffee. By 9 AM – I think after my exam – I was extremely light-headed and my bladder was, to say the least, overactive. I didn’t get any special treatment, I mean – those grades were the grades that were going to decide where and how I was going to college. Did I put my health in jeopardy, damn right, and, I’d do it again in a heartbeat – simply “wanting to go to college” was never enough, the reality is, grades matter. 

It’s the same in any major corporation, you have to bust your body to get the story filed on time, to get the website up, to finish reviewing the case. I wonder where the extent of this new ruling will go – Is it feasible to prevent a worker who catherizes themselves from going in a non-sterile environment, or have to go longer than their usual schedule to go? What about the part time wheelchair user that doesn’t use their chair at work, because they may feel it would be a distraction yet is fatigued when they get home? Should Chris Reeve be allowed to speak in public when, perhaps, his vent could, possibly, become unlodged and he could perhaps, even how remotely, die? Heck, he could be struck by lightning – as would, say Ralf Hotchkiss, Stephen Hawking or myself – all because we use metal wheelchairs. 

Maybe I’m taking this too extreme, I have been known to do that at time – but If I wanted to do a manual labor job (I did a couple days at a temp agency – yeah – I strained my back – but they also gave me completely incorrect info on the weight limits they wanted.)

People with disabilities need to be out in society to see – yes the “Supercrip" image is alive and well, but damn – do you think John Hockenberry got his Dateline job by just looking pretty and talking intelligently? Did his reporting from the Middle East, much acclaimed and, actually, sometimes life threatening (He went off on a donkey in Iraq – no wheelchair - without a restroom that was safe, and NPR actually paid him), have anything to do with it? But it isn’t about laws – it’s about a bunch of nine able bodied judges telling the disabled in our society – “Look buddy, you got a job – don’t push it” and to every freaking activist, career advocate, etc. 

What will be next – enforcement that people with disabilities shouldn’t do overtime because, god forbid, they’d be prone to being tired – JUST LIKE every other worker in America?  I mean – obvisiously – not everyone can do overtime – but many people need to as part of their career, - should we send a doctor to monitor our own "risks to ourselves" regarding a job we may like? I guess the paternalism of the court has ruled that I probably dont have that right - the right to risk my health, like every non-disabled person does (wow - geez not that worker's compensation was founded on the whole principle of risk assessment and such)I feel I should have that right - but the paternalism of not only the court – but of society as a whole against people with  disabilities – has stripped the Disabled of that right this week
- Mike Reynolds