On January 1, 1972, Dr. Arthur S. Abramson and Dr. Bernard Kutner composed a bill of rights. It was written 183 years after James Madison wrote and submitted to the First Congress the first set of amendments to the Constitution, better known as the Bill of Rights. Just 18 miles north of Federal Hall, where Madison’s Bill of Rights was drafted, Abramson and Kutner put pen to paper to enshrine the rights of disabled Americans. They looked to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence for inspiration in arguing for their own rights.
“Whereas the disabled in the United States, constituting a large minority with a commonality of need & a unity of purpose seek only to obtain for themselves what all Americans believe to be their birthright—life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness,” their document began.
Though it began with an allusion to the Declaration of Independence, Abramson and Kutner’s bill principally borrowed the language and format of Madison’s Bill of Rights. In the 1780s, many Americans—especially those concerned about the size and power of the federal government—opposed ratifying the draft U.S. Constitution. Ratification succeeded in part because of the popular expectation that the new U.S. Congress would immediately move to amend the national charter and add explicit protections for Americans’ rights, including freedom of religion and freedom of speech. As one of the chief architects of the Constitution and someone deeply invested in its survival, Madison spearheaded the drafting and adoption of what became known as the Bill of Rights. The Bill’s ten amendments provided a model followed by later generations of Americans, who amended the Constitution to (among other things) abolish slavery, protect Americans’ right to due process, and protect Americans’ right to vote.
When Abramson and Kutner sat down to write their bill, there were no constitutional amendments that protected the rights of disabled Americans. Disabled people and communities had educated and supported one another since before the founding of the United States, but they had consistently faced ableism—prejudice against people with disabilities. Abramson and Kutner were part of the modern disability rights movement that had picked up steam in the 1960s and 1970s, growing out of and taking inspiration from other civil rights movements led by African Americans and women.
Like Madison and others after him, Abramson and Kutner argued that the government is responsible for protecting individual rights. But while Madison’s Bill of Rights mostly focused on the rights of land-owning men, Abramson and Kutner’s document enshrined rights that both Founding Fathers and many Americans today take for granted: rights to healthcare, education, employment, and housing. Millions of disabled Americans are routinely denied these fundamental rights, Abramson and Kutner explained, and if Congress would not pass an amendment protecting the rights of disabled people, Abramson and Kutner would spell it out for them.
In many ways, Abramson and Kutner’s bill of rights is the logical continuation of Madison’s Ninth Amendment, that people have other rights not outlined in the Constitution. Just as Madison’s Bill of Rights broke radical new ground, challenging British law that prohibited people from bearing arms, assembling peacefully, and barring soldiers from living in their homes, writing this new disabled bill of rights was a revolutionary act.
In the first of 16 amendments, Abramson and Kutner called for access to diagnostic, therapeutic, and rehabilitative healthcare without discrimination based on race, religion, sex, age, social condition, economic status, or ethnic origin. Their next amendment argued that all disabled people requiring orthotic, prosthetic, or adaptive devices should have these devices and be trained to use them. Their amendments speak to the call for universal healthcare and medicine regardless of financial status that continues among disabled communities today.
Similarly, their sixth amendment protected people’s right to enter the labor market and have opportunities for specialized training and onboarding—a position they built on in their seventh amendment, stating “that a nationwide network of tax-supported sheltered workshops be created to offer limited work opportunities for all those severely disabled persons unable to enter the competitive labor market.” Agreed, I like shifting to "these amendments were" These amendments were especially significant because, just one year earlier, educator and disabled activist Judy Heumann sued the New York City Board of Education for denying her a teaching license based on the argument that her wheelchair was a fire hazard. Heumann would go on to found Disabled in Action, a disability rights organization, which first protested unequal and costly transportation for disabled individuals at the Manhattan City Hall in October 1970.
In a 1971 article for Newsday, reporter Edward Butler shared what made Heumann’s organization so significant. Like Abramson and Kutner’s bill of rights, Disabled in Action was created by and for disabled people, as opposed to other organizations acting on behalf of disabled people. As Heumann told Butler, “Too many programs for the handicapped have been cut or discontinued because we haven’t been aggressive or vocal. We’re not going to sit back any longer.”
Abramson and Kutner’s activism was shaped by their work with disabled patients as doctors at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Like Heumann, Abramson specifically drew on his lived experience as a disabled individual. Abramson used a wheelchair due to an injury he sustained during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Before writing the bill, he served on the President’s Committee on Employment of the Physically Handicapped from 1956 to 1969 and proposed a new form of long-term care—a rehabilitation day hospital. In it, disabled patients could receive treatment within their communities rather than in sterile hospital settings. Their bill of rights’ eleventh amendment, which centered on transportation, reflected Abramson’s experiences as a traveler. As he shared in a 1975 New York Times article, he spent months planning every detail of his trips, even calling the airline ahead of time to confirm he could fly alone. He did this every time after he was refused boarding an airplane in Florida.
Abramson and Kutner used what is now known as identity-first language throughout the bill, identifying the people whose rights they were enshrining as "disabled people" rather than "differently abled," "diversely abled," or the person-first description "people with disabilities." The disability community continues to debate this topic today, with some groups preferring person-first language while others argue that "disabled" and other identity-first terms should not be taboo. Disabled communities have largely abandoned the word "handicapped," which Abramson and Kutner did use.
Abramson and Kutner’s bill imagined the future of federal laws and legal advancement. The very next year (1973), Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act, which ensured disabled individuals’ legal right to equal opportunity for employment in the federal government and organizations that receive federal funding—adopting Abramson and Kutners sixth and seventh amendments. Section 504 of the act also made it illegal not to provide equal access to public housing and public transportation, even though this portion of the act was largely unenforced.
In 1975 Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, or Public Law 94-142. This federal protection, along with California’s Master Plan for Special Education, required the government to provide free public education to all disabled children. Norm Ginsburg, an Orange County public school administrator, called the federal and state legislation a “parent and student bill of rights.”
In 1980, 17 years after Abramson and Kutner wrote their version, another unidentified group published a new disabled peoples' bill of rights and declaration of independence. While it also included the right to healthcare and adaptive devices, employment, housing, job training, education, and accessible transportation mentioned in Abramson and Kutner’s version, it pushed further. In line with its first amendment, “the right to live independent, active, and full lives,” this new bill argued for disabled Americans’ rights to bear, adopt, and raise children; enjoy entertainment and recreation; access all business facilities; communicate freely; have legal representation; and vote.
Although the Bill of Rights protected free speech and the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments protected people’s right to vote regardless of race and sex, these new drafters recognized that communication is not always free (without access to communication devices, services, and training) and that voting is not always accessible. Similarly, although the Sixth Amendment ensured Americans’ right to counsel, not all disabled Americans had access to this service—and if they did, they did not have access to the communication devices and services to take equitable advantage. In line with the original Declaration of Independence, these new drafters also argued that disabled Americans, like all other Americans, have the right to self-determination.
In 1990 President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law. Newsday heralded the statute as a “Disabled Bill of Rights.” However, many of the rights outlined in Abramson and Kutner’s 1972 bill and the following 1980 version have yet to be realized. Instead, these two disabled people’s bills of rights show how Madison’s first document created a framework used by Americans to fight for their rights, a mechanism of protest that continues to impact how disabled people and allies fight for rights today in the United States.
Emma Cieslik (she/her) is an emerging museum professional in Washington, D.C. Previously, she interned in the museum’s Office of Curatorial Affairs, working with the new Center for the Understanding of Religion in American History.
