From Privileges to Rights: People Labeled with Psychiatric Disabilities Speak forThemselves

摘要

I am pleased to submit the National Council on Disabilitys (NCD) report FromPrivileges to Rights: People Labeled with Psychiatric Disabilities Speak for Themselves, which is based on the testimony of people with psychiatric disabilities who testified at an NCD hearing in 1998. All the recommendations in this report emphasize the basic principle that people with psychiatric disabilities are, first and foremost, citizens who have the right to expect that they will be treated according to the principles of law that apply to all other citizens. All laws and policies that restrict the rights of people with psychiatric disabilities simply because of their disabilities are inharmonious with basic principles of law and justice, as well as with such landmark civil rights laws as the Americans with Disabilities Act.