Conservatives Block Ratification of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Conservative Republican Rick Santorum, a former U.S. Senator and candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, on this day urged the Senate to oppose ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The UN Convention became effective on May 3, 2008, but the U.S. has still not ratified it because of conservative opposition. Santorum, who has a disabled child, charged that the Convention would mean that decisions about children would be made by remote and faceless United Nations bureaucrats rather than by their parents.
The failure of the U.S. to ratify the convention is particularly ironic, since it was inspired by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which became American law on July 26, 1990.
On December 3, 1982, the United Nations declared December 3rd the International Day of Disabled Persons.
Read the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/conventionfull.shtml
Learn more about the rights of disabled persons: https://www.aclu.org/disability-rights
Read: Kim Nielsen, A Disability History of the United States (2012)
Learn more at the National Disability Rights Network: http://www.ndrn.org/index.php
And more at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund: http://dredf.org/