The GOP Wants To Gut The Americans With Disabilities Act

Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population is disabled. This means that the ADA — the Americans With Disabilities Act, which was passed in 1990 under President George H.W. Bush’s administration — protects the basic rights of almost 60 million disabled Americans. 

My husband ― a quadriplegic wheelchair-user since a spinal cord injury in his 20s, a father to our 6-month-old and a professor at Oberlin College ― has found the ADA to be invaluable to our family’s ability to participate equally in society. In the U.S. House, 213 Republicans and 12 Democrats took a step toward making our everyday lives a lot harder by voting “yes” on H.R. 620 on Feb. 15.

Misleadingly named “The ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017,” H.R. 620 is posited as legislation that would prevent frivolous lawsuits against business by removing incentives to comply with accessibility laws. But in actuality, the new bill could potentially strip away access to a number of Americans living with disabilities.

Much of the support for the measure and its under-the-radar, low fanfare (at least in mainstream media coverage) passage relied on widespread public inattention to and ignorance about the ADA’s significance to disabled populations. Rationalizations for H.R. 620 belie either a fundamental misunderstanding or willful misrepresentation of both the ADA and the bill aiming to gut it.

 In a nutshell, the ADA protects the rights of disabled individuals to participate in public life and access government services. A landmark piece of legislation and the most comprehensive set of protections for the disabled population in U.S. history, the bill includes specific accessibility guidelines for businesses, particularly in the event of new construction or remodeling. The ADA sought to eliminate discrimination and to provide a legal incentive for government agencies and private businesses to address areas of inequality for the disabled.

Source: huffingtonpost