Disability rights advocate Elizabeth Weintraub spoke out about Judge Kavanaugh's “low expectations” for people with disabilities.
Liz Weintraub was among those who testified at the Senate confirmation hearing for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on September 7.
Here’s what she said in her written testimony:
“I was born in 1966 with cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability. Fifty-one years ago, I entered a world that had low expectations for me and people like me. Professionals told families like mine that they should put me in an institution. They said that I might distract attention away from my healthy sisters if I was raised at home. . . .
“I am proud to tell you that, thanks to a loving family and so many wonderful friends who helped me believe in myself, I have achieved more than many thought possible for someone like me. I work full-time for the Association of University Centers on Disabilities as the Senior Advocacy Specialist. . . .
“In addition to my title at work, I am very proud to say that I am a friend, a sister and an aunt. However, the title that I am the most proud of is being a wife to a wonderful man who also happens to have a disability.”
Liz was there to talk about an infamously putrid decision Kavanaugh authored in 2007 in Doe, Jane v. D.C., a lawsuit filed on behalf of three women with intellectual disabilities who lived in institutions in Washington, D.C. All three were among many residents given elective surgeries without anyone attempting to ascertain if they actually wanted to receive those surgeries.
Liz understood quite well what this case was all about. At the Kavanaugh hearing, she testified:
“Some professionals and my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to be placed into a private institution. Without me being a part of the decision, or even including me in the conversation, they decided that I should live in an institution. In this place, I was surrounded by other people with disabilities, and separated from my family and from the community. This was wrong. My parents loved me. They were good people, and they were only listening to professionals who wanted what was best for me. But, instead of treating me like an adult with opinions and preferences and asking what I wanted, they made the decision for me, like a child.”
In Doe, Jane v. D.C., the district court sided with the plaintiffs and ruled that the District of Columbia Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration had to attempt to determine how residents feel about receiving such surgeries before authorizing them. The court concluded, “[e]ven a legally incompetent, mentally retarded individual may be capable of expressing or manifesting a choice or preference regarding medical treatment.”
In other words, all the administration had to do was ask all its institutional residents who were being considered for elective surgeries how they felt about it. They weren’t required to obey those wishes but only to weigh them in their decision-making.
“I have spent the majority of my adult life fighting to be treated like an adult.”
Liz testified that she still battles against assumptions of her incompetence. “I have spent the majority of my adult life fighting to be treated like an adult, to be taken seriously when I expressed my wishes. . . . Because of my intellectual disability, I am still sometimes treated like a child who cannot make my own decisions. Recently, when my husband and I went to renew our lease, the apartment management company did not want to talk to us. Instead, they wanted to talk to my service provider or my sister. My husband and I both have professional jobs. We live on our own and pay our own rent.”
But Judge Kavanaugh thought differently. He wrote the cold opinion for the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, striking down the lower court. He wrote, “accepting the wishes of patients who lack (and have always lacked) the mental capacity to make medical decisions does not make logical sense . . .”
Liz testified why this callousness really frightens her. “This year I was diagnosed with diabetes. . . . I expect to be involved in all of the decisions about how I will manage this new condition, and I expect to be able to ask questions until I understand what I need to do. I am fearful that some people will try to make decisions without me. . . . Judge Kavanaugh’s decision completely disrespected people’s rights and their freedom of choice because of their disability. . . . If Judge Kavanaugh is appointed to the Supreme Court, I am afraid that for generations to come my right to make decisions for myself will be taken away.”
Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who presided over the hearing, politely thanked Liz for her testimony and moved on to the next speaker.