Timeline of disability rights outside the United States

Did You Know?

• In ancient Greece, a pharmakos—often a physically disabled person, slave, or criminal—was ritually expelled or sacrificed as a scapegoat during times of disaster or calendrical crisis.
• In 1729, punishment was recommended for people with physical disabilities who appeared in public, under what were colloquially known as 'Ugly Laws'.
• In 1902, an ugly law similar to those in the United States was enacted in Manila, Philippines, prohibiting diseased or deformed persons from exposing themselves to public view.

1930s

In 1933, Nazi Germany enacted the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, which allowed compulsory sterilization of citizens deemed by a Genetic Health Court to have alleged genetic disorders, many not actually genetic. The law's commentary was written by Ernst Rüdin, Arthur Gütt, and Falk Ruttke, and was based on a model American law by Harry H. Laughlin. Amendments by 1935 allowed the Higher Court to renounce a patient's right to appeal and fine physicians who failed to report qualifying patients. Adolf Hitler personally decriminalized abortion for fetuses with racial or hereditary defects for doctors, while abortion of healthy 'Aryan' unborn remained forbidden. In Sweden, compulsory sterilization occurred from 1934 to 1975. Initially aimed at protecting society from the so-called feeble-minded, from the 1950s it was used more for social or medical reasons under pressure from doctors and social workers. Eugenic indication allowed sterilization if offspring would receive undesired genes for insanity, severe illness, or physical handicap; social indication allowed it for those unsuitable to foster a child due to mental illness, feeblemindedness, or asocial lifestyle. A 2000 government report estimated 21,000 people were forcibly sterilized, 6,000 coerced into 'voluntary' sterilization, and 4,000 cases could not be determined. Sweden later paid damages to victims who requested compensation.

1990s

In 1990, China enacted the Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons, which required special assistance, treatment, and pensions for disabled servicemen and persons disabled on duty, guaranteed rights to education and work, and banned discrimination in employment and other areas. Also in 1990, MindFreedom International was founded in America as a coalition of over one hundred grassroots groups and thousands of individual members from fourteen nations, advocating against forced medication, medical restraints, and involuntary electroconvulsive therapy. In 1991, an Australian inquest into the death of Baby M, a girl born with severe birth defects, ruled that she died of natural causes and exonerated her parents and medical staff, with the deputy coroner stating the decisions were legally, ethically, and morally sound. In 1992, Australia's Disability Discrimination Act 1992 banned discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, education, access to premises, accommodation, buying or selling land, club activities, sport, administration of Commonwealth laws and programs, and provision of goods, services, and facilities.

2000s

In 2004, 300 people with disability, their carers, and families rallied in Lismore, Australia against cuts to Adult, Training, Learning and Support Programs, part of rolling protests that led the New South Wales government to withdraw cuts to a Post-Schools Options Disability Program. Also in 2004, the European Court of Human Rights in HL v UK found that informal admission of a compliant but incapacitated adult to a psychiatric hospital violated Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, leading to major changes in UK admission procedures for incapacitated adults (see Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards). In 2005, Autistic Pride Day was first celebrated, selected by Aspies For Freedom on June 18, the birthday of the youngest member of the group at that time.

Europe

In 2006, Italian poet and activist Piergiorgio Welby, diagnosed with muscular dystrophy as a teenager and reliant on a ventilator since 1997, spent three months fighting for the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment. Liberal politicians backed him, while conservatives and the Vatican opposed; he was ultimately allowed to die but denied a church burial. That same year, a high court in Lausanne, Switzerland, granted an unnamed person with long-term psychiatric issues the right to end their own life. In 2007, former Italian football referee Giovanni Nuvoli, who had ALS since 2001, sought euthanasia with support from Associazione Luca Coscioni. Authorities blocked his attempt on February 13; he began a hunger strike on July 16 and died on July 23. In 2009, Eluana Englaro, an Italian woman in a persistent vegetative state since a 1992 car crash, had her feeding tube removed after a prolonged court battle. Her father argued she had told a friend in a coma she would not want to be kept alive that way. In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Alajos Kiss v. Hungary that Hungary could not restrict voting rights solely because someone was under guardianship due to a psychosocial disability, awarding Kiss 3,000 euros. In 2013, Ireland’s Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Bill repealed the Marriage of Lunatics Act 1811 and the Lunacy Regulation (Ireland) Act 1871.