Page 147 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

1 | D sab l t es and the Med a

deFining disaBility
The federal government defines disability:

For purposes of nondiscrimination laws (e.g. the Americans with Disabilities Act, Sec-
tion 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Section 188 of the Workforce Investment
Act), a person with a disability is generally defined as someone who (1) has a physical or
mental impairment that substantially limits one or more “major life activities,” (2) has a
record of such an impairment, or (3) is regarded as having such an impairment. With this
definition, we see how important the social construction of a disabled person can be to
policy, perceptions and even behavior.

in the discussion about their disabilities. Disability advocates argue that there is
a unique disability culture that is outside of normal and normative mainstream
culture. For instance, deaf culture argues against teaching deaf children to use
spoken language and to use sign language, and critiques the use of cochlear im-
plants. Why not enable deaf persons to communicate with a means (sign lan-
guage) that is more readily accessible for them, rather than requiring them to
use verbal language, which might be easier for those of us who are not disabled
to understand, but which emphasizes deaf persons’ disability?

DisaBiLiTy in ThE mass mEDia

One example of how media accounts of disability have shaped societal under-
standing, and misunderstanding, of disabled persons can be seen in the example
of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and the creation of Not Dead Yet. Not Dead Yet is a dis-
ability rights advocacy group which was founded on April 27, 1996, shortly after
Kevorkian was acquitted in the assisted suicides of two women with nontermi-
nal disabilities.
Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Thomas
Youk, 52, a Michigan man suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Referring to his
release after eight years in prison as “one of the high points of his life,” Kevork-
ian was met by Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes on his release. In 1998 Wallace’s
reporting on the filming of Youk’s death “played a key role in Kevorkian’s con-
viction”; an interview with Kevorkian was broadcast on 60 Minutes on the Sun-
day following his release in June 2007. “They’ll downplay his history of helping
non-terminally ill disabled people commit suicide and portray him as some
kind of martyr,” Not Dead Yet wrote in December 2006. “They won’t mention
his advocacy of lethal experimentation on death row prisoners or disabled in-
fants at all.” Many disability rights advocates have long opposed Kevorkian and
his public crusade to legalize assisted suicide. They have argued that doing so
would essentially make it “open season” for people with disabilities who are
often considered a burden on society, particularly at a time when the cost of
health care is high. They have also noted that many people Kevorkian “helped”
end their lives were not in the final stages of terminal illnesses, but instead had