The current medical model of disability treats disability as defects which are In need of treatment. This causes able-bodied people to be seen as the norm, resulting in stigma and discrimination surrounding disabilities. This stigma and discrimination is extremely evident in many different institutions, specifically in special education, the medical field, and law.
Due to the medical model of disability, those with disabilities are seen as having something abnormal or wrong about them, which leads to creating a barrier between the able-bodied and disabled, specifically education.
In schools, the term special education (SEN) is often used to describe the schooling that disabled students receive. Special education proves extremely helpful to some, but in other cases the separation "may lead to more exclusion and discrimination" (Hatim, 2017).
The result of special education is similar to the medical model in the sense that both are models presumed to define disability in a way that will be helpful to the disabled community, but really just perpetuates further discrimination by segregating the disabled from the able-bodied.
Seperating the education of these two groups may result in separation in other aspects of life, such as higher education and future employment opportunities. Society tend to place people into certain groups, many people with disabiltites and their advocates argue that "classifying people by their syndromes and difficulty is stigmatizing and could result In their exclusion from mainstream society" (Sutcliffe & Simmons 1993).
The medical model has been extremely prominent in SEN as a tool to classify individuals with disabilities. It is not to say that those with disabilities should not receive any help that they need and desire, it is simply that the medical model and SEN label is separating able-bodied and disabled students, causing them to be seen as two separate groups, one more worthy than the other.
The label of SEN was implemented to ensure that those with disabilities are receiving the appropriate support that they need, but it is often ignored that the appropriate support could be given in mainstream classes and schools with a bit more effort.
According to a study conducted by psychological experts with secondary school students as the subjects, "there are various programmes in schools which were initially designed mainly to support students with SEN, however It was found that in a mainstream environment [with able-bodied students] they were just as effective." (Bosnjack 2017). If is possible to incorporate the needs of special education into mainstream education, it simply does not make sense to seperate these groups and cause further discrimination.
Trusted medical professionals have had to deal with the discrimination and conflicts that stem from the medical model of disability being the standard. The guidelines for helping those with both visible and invisible disabilities have almost always been quite discriminatory towards those that are deemed “not disabled enough” to require necessary accessibility aids and those that do require certain aids.
The Medical Model of Disability takes those that may be seen as “less afflicted” and essentially says that they are not in need of accessibility help. The medical aspect simply sees disability as a bodily issue and is constantly overlooked in medicine. Some of the major overarching issues that those criticizing the medical model face is where to draw the line in disability assistance and formal diagnosis. As in determining when aids. interventions, and accommodations need to be recommended or put in place.
The “goals” set by the medical model through “faulty generalizations”throw out the empathy and passion that practitioners have to improve the quality of life for their patients (Barlow). The discussion that comes from the medical model is extremely limiting and could be improved upon through deeper thought and not focusing on making rules or guidelines for disabilities, instead looking more into the needs of others and changing to benefit all of those that are on the disability spectrum.
“Critiques of the so-called medical model have been an important vehicle by which alternative narratives of disability entered the clinical arena” is what is needed, through noticing these flaws and acting to improve upon them will will help eliminate the discrimination and abuse that the disabled community endures through modern medical practices and the medical lense (Hogan).
By changing to a model more based on the social model will create a better and more friendly place in society that. those that are disabled wont feel as if they are the issue and more so the environment is not easily accessible to those that need things like movement, dexterity, or learning aids.
Author Arseli Dokumacı specifically says in her article, The ‘Disabilitization’ of Medicine: The Emergence of Quality of Life as a Space to Interrogate the Concept of the Medical Model, that this model of disability should be “a category that is defined not through its reduction to mere pathology, but through its dispersal into everyday life.” which is more in tune with the ideas that fill the social model of disability. This stigma has been ingrained in society since the beginning with the mistreatment or abuse that young children endured if they had a type of visible birth defect but has only increased due to the modernization of medicine and the increase in media coverage to add to the fear factor and visceral reactions to those with disabilities.
Changing the wording of the medical model is not only necessary but way too late. With the creation of the social model the medical model should have become a thing of the past to help eliminate and exterminate the fear based discrimination that has come with the terror filled upbringing of those that do not identify with having a disability.
The medical model is often used in the United States Justice System leaving the disabled vulnerable to discrimination.
One disability rights act affected by the medical model is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This civil rights law prohibits discrimination based on disability. This is a great law but the disabled are often limited by the courts in how they can use this law.
One example of this is in the case of Rosen v. Montgomery County. A blind man was denied access to a lawyer because he could not communicate with the officers. Jamelia Morgan from Policing Under Disability Law argues that “judicial interpretations relied on the medical model of disability--which more often than not led courts to conclude that the ADA did not apply to arrests”.
Another example of the disabled being denied access to the ADA is the case of Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools. In this case, a young girl was not allowed to bring her service dog to school. The lower courts voted in favor of the school, arguing that the school offered her free, appropriate education. The lower courts did not consider the ADA for her case because the ADA says that she is guaranteed equal education.
“courts routinely deny... access to two such laws--the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (section 504)” says Claire Raj in THE LOST PROMISE OF DISABILITY RIGHTS.
If the U.S. Judicial System instead took a social model of disability approach to these cases, they would see that a person is not disabled by their medical issues, the environment disables a person when it is not accessible. With this approach, the disabled would no longer be denied access to the rights that they deserve.