From the BBC, [UK] Guardian:

Lady Nicky Chapman, the first person with a congenital disability to be appointed to the British House of Lords, has died. She was 48.

Baroness Chapman was born with brittle bone disease and elected to the House of Lords as a “people’s peer” in 2004. She was known as a fierce advocate whose complaints about a taxi driver who would not transport her led to broad enforcement of the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act.

Chapman said she was written off by doctors at birth as someone who would be blind, deaf, and unable to communicate, and would have “no noticeable mental function.” She used this personal story to powerful effect in debates on such issues as the right to die, “reminding peers and the wider world of how often doctors are wrong, and how stout the human spirit can be.”

From Mike Donnelly in the [UK] Guardian:

She had the special power to make people grow and be the best of themselves. She made us stretch towards a higher understanding of what it means to be different. In a profound way she shook people’s perception of normality and what it means to be human.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 11:59 pm and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, advocacy, international, obits, physical disabilities, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.