Article 49: “The public authorities will carry out a policy of provision, treatment, rehabilitation and integration of the physically, sensorially and mentally handicapped, to whom they will provide the attention they require and will protect them especially for the enjoyment of the rights that this title grants to them. all the citizens". It has been 45 years since the approval of the Constitution and the term diminished squeaks more and more.
With the intention of promoting the rights and well-being of the group, the UN established December 3 as the Day of Persons with Disabilities in 1992. This is the expression that the UN itself has recommended since 2006 and that the Council of Ministers has committed to introducing into the Constitution. Now all that remains is for the PSOE and the PP to agree on a reform that both parties consider necessary.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, said on the occasion of the anniversary of the Constitution that he would propose to the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a working commission for the reformulation of article 49. The problem, according to the popular ones, is that it includes in the same list of pending tasks: the renewal of the Judiciary and the reform of regional financing. And therein lies the origin of the disagreement again.
The PP replies that the constitutional reform would be unblocked “with a stroke of the pen” if it is limited to article 49, but it does not want to open the door to more modifications. This lack of agreement keeps many people in suspense. According to a survey by the National Institute of Statistics, almost 4.4 million people had some type of disability in Spain in 2020 (in Catalonia alone, more than 660,000).
For years, the UN and the World Health Organization have supported not talking about handicapped people. Not even disabled people, as proposed by the Royal Spanish Academy. Experts prefer people with disabilities. It is about, they explain, putting the focus on what is most important, on the person, and not on their circumstances. Furthermore, we will all have a disability at one time or another.
“If you break your leg and arrive at a building where the elevator doesn't work, you are a person with a disability. But if the elevator works, you do not have a disability,” explains the Catalan Down Syndrome Foundation. This entity has been demanding more elevators and respectful language in line with reality for years. In 2009 he demanded it before the UN with a speech that can be summarized as follows: treat us like people.
Is Cristian Garcia disabled, with cerebral palsy and one of the co-presenters of a special Telenotícies on the occasion of the International Day of People with Disabilities? Is his friend Sergi Moncunill, a university student, politician, activist, Treasury official and with an intellectual disability? Is Montse Vilarrasa, with Down syndrome, the author of that speech before the UN? The Third Sector is clear about it.
This platform, which brings together 28,000 social entities, asks to banish a degrading expression. The Taula of the Third Sector, its equivalent in Catalonia, maintains the same. “It is not just about the language being inclusive, but also respectful,” adds the Confederation of People with Disabilities, which gives this example of fictitious headlines: “A scientist with a disability develops a flu vaccine” and “A Brown-eyed scientist develops flu vaccine.” Like the color of the eyes, this entity concludes, “disability does not define the person.”
