Writing in The Australian about the case of Bernhard Moeller, Jan Gothard and Charlie Fox say disability has become the “new unmentionable”  in Australian immigration policy, replacing race as the excluded category no one talked about. Australia barred non-whites from immigration until about forty years ago.

Gothard and Fox trace the history of Australian law that permits the exclusion of “any idiot or insane person” and “any person likely to become a charge upon the public.” They say exclusion of people with disabilities is explicitly permitted in Australia because immigration policy is not covered by the nation’s Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), as spelled out in Clause 52. An excerpt:

The perception that people with disability can be nothing more than a cost or a burden has been out of date in Australia for at least the past 30 years and explicitly devalues all people in Australia living with disabilities.

Families with a child with a disability … should not be put in the position of having to fight their way through the Migration Review Tribunal before being accorded the right to bring their skills and qualifications into Australia. The family of Tracey Robinson, who finally received ministerial approval for migration last week, had waited more than six years for a resolution and over that period had to endure an appeal to the tribunal as well as to the Federal Court. Immigration Minister Evans should be called on urgently to exercise his discretion and offer closure to the many other families in waiting. But above all, the DDA should be changed and its clause 52, like the White Australia policy before it, should be consigned to the dustbin of history. It’s time to throw aside legislation cast in century-old attitudes, and for the Rudd Government to do for disability what the Whitlam government did for race.

Gothard and Fox are parents, historians and members of Down Syndrome Western Australia.

From CQ/Washington Post:

Speaking at the annual conference of the Republican Governors Association, Sarah Palin told of the families and people with disabilities she met along the campaign trail. An excerpt from the transcript of her remarks:

I will remember with gratitude all the families with special needs children who were the stars of the show in our rallies: kids with autism and some in their wheelchairs and these beautiful kids who maybe before were made to feel like there wasn’t a place for them in the life of our country.

… You know, and always being warned you can’t cry on the campaign trail or you can’t show that — well, my goodness, speaking to some of these families and the challenges that they have — and they who aren’t asking anything from government or from anybody else — perhaps a hand up, but not a handout, these families.

I would see them in the audience, and they would hold up their banners. And I’ll tell you, I came close to crying few times, because they just touched my heart.

(more…)

From The Australian:

Perth midwife Tracey Robinson and her husband, Paul, have won a six-year battle against the Immigration Department to stay in Australia with their Down syndrome son.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans has foreshadowed reform of the visa process for families with disabled children after using his discretion this week to grant the Robinsons permanent residency.

Robinson’s struggle came to light after the Australian government last month denied permanent residency to German doctor Bernhard Moeller because his son Lukas has Down syndrome.

See also: Child health expert opposes refusal of visas over Down syndrome — The Australian:

Child expert Fiona Stanley, 2003 Australian of the Year, says the permanent residency denials of the families of children with Down syndrome is “shameful” and “discriminatory.” Stanley is a professor in the School of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

(more…)

From Politico.com:

Respected political analyst Michael Barone drew criticism Tuesday when he told a conference of academics that journalists trashed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin because “she did not abort her Down syndrome baby.”

Audience members erupted in angry boos, and some walked out of the annual meeting of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges in Chicago.

“The liberal media attacked Sarah Palin because she did not abort her Down syndrome baby,” Barone said, according to accounts by attendees. “They wanted her to kill that child. … I’m talking about my media colleagues with whom I’ve worked for 35 years.”

Barone did not dispute the accounts of his remarks, and said in an email that he was “attempting to be humorous and, as many in public do, went over the line.” His apology is here.

Barone is a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and principal coauthor of “The Almanac of American Politics.” He is also a regular commentator on Fox News.

(U.S. News photo)

John Loudon, wife adopted son with Down syndrome

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Republican Missouri state senator John Loudon and his wife are the adoptive parents of Sammy, a little boy with Down syndrome. The couple, who have deep roots in the anti-abortion movement, are also at the center of an ongoing national discussion about genetic testing, the acceptance of people with disabilities, and the type of information about Down syndrome that new or expecting parents are getting from their doctors.

Last year Loudon pushed through a state law, named for his son, that requires medical professionals to provide accurate information on the outcomes of people with Down syndrome and inform mothers with a Down diagnosis of adoption resources.

Some physicians and abortion rights activists worry that “Sammy’s law,” as well as the recently approved federal Kennedy-Brownback Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act, could interfere with the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship.

From the New York Times:

In a story about the haphazard way in which the American health care system handles cases involving uninsured immigrants, the New York Times documents efforts by an Arizona hospital to deport a baby with Down syndrome and a heart problem to Mexico against his parents’ wishes. The baby, Elliott Bustamente, was an American citizen born at University Medical Center in Tucson.

A hospital spokeswoman said the hospital believed Elliott’s parents to be residents of Mexico, and therefore decided to transfer him to his “community of residence” for continuing care. The baby’s parents challenged the decision through the Mexican consulate, a lawyer and the police. Eventually, after the Arizona Medicaid system approved the baby for coverage, the hospital dropped its effort to send him to Mexico.

“The medical pretext for the transfer disappeared once they found the money,” said Fernando Gaxiola, the family’s lawyer.

Other stories include a legal immigrant from Mexico  who was sent across the border by a Phoenix hospital, a man from China who had a stroke and is being cared for in a Manhattan hospital, and an Oklahoma City hospital that discharged a brain-injured patient from Honduras to a relative who was ill-equipped to care for him. Hospitals see themselves as stranded at the crossroads of a failed immigration policy and a failed health care system.

From the Australian, The Sunday Times/Perth Now, The Age:

A second case has emerged of a medical worker being refused permanent residency in Australia because the government concluded that her child with Down syndrome posed a significant cost to the community. Down Syndrome Western Australia, a support group, termed the cases “the tip of the iceberg.”

Dr. Jan Gothard of DSWA said the case involved a British midwife at Joondalup Hospital in Perth who declined to let her name be used for fear of retribution. Outraged supporters said the woman had been recruited by the government as part of an effort to address an acute shortage of midwives.

Her case follows that of German Doctor Bernhard Moeller, who was denied residency for the same reason. Dr. Moeller had been recruited in an effort to reduce a shortage of doctors.

Dr. Gothard said it was standard practice for families of children with Down syndrome to be rejected for residency in Australia. The group called the practice  “discriminatory and disgraceful.”

The unnamed midwife is described by fellow staff as “one of the hospital’s best.” She has battled with the government since 2002.

See earlier posts here, here, and here.