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Becky Blitch is a 27-year-old activist, volunteer, and public speaker living with spinal muscular atrophy (type II). She is an alumna of Eckerd College ('02), a former Ms. Wheelchair Florida, and is currently pursuing her M.A. in Transformative Leadership at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is the handler of Sydney, a 6-year-old golden retriever service dog, and is currently single. /wink/
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The presidential candidates on the UN Convention on Gimps
A little over a week ago I wrote about the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities hitting its critical mass of ratifications thanks to Ecuador. The US is currently (shamefully) not even a signatory to the convention, much less a ratifying member. If disability rights issues are important to you, then you might wonder, as I did, what the presidential candidates' positions are on ratification.
So I dug up the questionnaire sent to the candidates of both parties by the American Association of People with Disabilities. You can view the full questionnaire with side-by-side comparisons of responses at the AAPD's 2008 Presidential Election Action Center. Here's the salient bit about the UN convention:
Do you support U.S. ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocal?
Obama: Yes. I believe that the rights of the estimated 650 million individuals with disabilities worldwide must be protected. I support the United States' ratification of this important measure.
Clinton: I embrace the values that animate the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I believe the Convention was undertaken with the same goals that the United States had in enacting the ADA – namely, the goals of empowering individuals with disabilities and integrating these individuals into all aspects of society. Given the virtuous goals embedded within the Convention, I would champion these principles as President.
McCain: [crickets chirping]
McCain has not yet answered the questionnaire, so I don't know if he has a stated position on this issue. (Although McCain doesn't seem to know McCain's positions on some things, so who knows.) Obama gives a clear, unqualified "yes" - indeed, ratification of the convention is the first thing Obama mentions in his video about his proposed policies on disability rights. And Clinton sounds, as usual, like Charlie Brown's teacher - she "values... the virtuous goals" of the Convention, and promises to champion said goals, but she never actually says whether she'd support ratification of the convention itself.
Posted Tuesday, April 15 @ 9:24 AM