Human and Legal Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons

Abstract

Traditionally, mentally retarded people have been treated as second-class citizens under our legal system. Lawmakers, judges, and most of the public , being poorly informed of the facts , have tended to view retarded persons as somehow less fully human than themselves and therefore not entitled to equal -citizenship status. In the past and still, to an unfortunate extent mentally retarded people in our society have suffered denial or infringement of a wide range of basic rights. Those who are confined to institutions necessarily suffer infringements their fundamental right to liberty and many other constitutional rights that depend liberty, such as the right to travel, the right to free association, and the right to privacy. Once committed to an institution, mentally retarded people are often subjected to other deprivations as well, including denial of their right to medical treatment, to habilitation, to education, to autonomy, to privacy, and to sexual expression. Often they are denied even the right to protection from harm. In the community, mentally retarded persons are also too frequently deprived of fundamental rights enjoyed by normal citizens, including the right to education, to enter into a contract (to marry or even to buy a television set on time), to be licensed (for such diverse activities as selling real estate or being abeautician), to buy insurance, to vote, and to be free from discrimination in securing suitable employment and housing. Discrimination against mentally retarded people may deprive them of virtually all of their legal rights.