Children With Disabilities: Where Will The Discrimination End?

Here’s an interesting commentary on whether discrimination against people with disabilities will stop with denying them organ transplants.

Is Denial of Life-Saving Care for Mentally Disabled Girl a Sign of Things to Come?

When Joe and Chrissy Rivera sat down with a physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to talk about their child’s medical prognosis, the couple had no inkling they were about to become part of a heated national debate.

Their 3-year-old, Amelia, has a rare genetic disorder, Wolf Hirschhorn syndrome, a condition caused by missing chromosomal material. It causes mental disabilities and may include other birth defects. Amelia’s kidneys were failing, and she would need a kidney transplant sometime within the next year or so.

As described in a blog post by Chrissy Rivera, a high-school English teacher, the doctor, who is not named, placed two sheets of paper on the conference table last month, with words highlighted in pink: “mentally retarded” on one and “brain damage” on the other.

According to Rivera, Amelia was being denied a transplant because of her mental disabilities. more