Lampitt Co-Sponsored Effort to Remove the "R-Word" Advances

This article recently appeared in The Council--the magazine of the New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities. I was proud to be a co-sponsor of this bill in the State Assembly:

State and Federal Efforts to Remove "R-Word" from Laws Advance
from The Council, July 2010 issue

A US Senate committee has approved legislation to remove the words "mental retardation" and "mentally retarded" from federal labor, health and education laws. The bill, sponsored by Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Senator Michael Enzi, R-Wyoming, was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Commitee. It would replace the terms "mental retardation" and "mentally retarded" with "intellectual disability" and "individual with an intellectual disability."

The bill makes language used in federal law consistent with the language used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and the White House through the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

The bill would not affect services, rights or educational opportunities for people with disabilities, and a preliminary analysis from the Congressional Budget Office found no cost associated with the change.

The bill now moves to the full US Senate for consideration.

In New Jersey, the State Senate has voted to approve legislation that would remove outdated terms for individuals with developmental disabilities from state law.

The measure would delete references to the terms "mental retardation," "mentally retarded," "idiot," and "feeble-minded" in state statutes and regulations, and replace them with the term "intellectual disability." The bill would also update state law that deals with institutions and agencies--to replace the terms "mentally retarded" and "mental retardation" with the broader terms "developmentally disabled," and "developmental disability." The bill also calls for the incorporation of person-first language. The bill was unanimously approved by a Senate committee in early June. A companion bill in the New Jersey General Assembly is scheduled for a vote as the Council Newsletter goes to press.

"Quite simply, words matter," said Senate President Stephen M Sweeney (D-Gloucester), the bill's sponsor. Sweeney's daughter, Lauren, has Down syndrome.

"For far too long, the words used to describe individuals with developmental disabilities have served only to marginalize these residents," Sweeney said. "The reality is that persons with disabilities contribute greatly to our society. Our laws, at the least, must recognize that."