“In 1977, an act was passed that gives any mentally retarded/handicapped adult the same rights of any other adult, unless they have been adjudicated incompetent. They are not children-they are no different from any other adult with a disability-a former casemanager, I’m very familiar with that act. Elderly persons are not “dependent” in that sense unless they have been found incompetent, either-they have the same rights as you and I.”
These laws are ridiculously loophole ridden and rarely enforced.
I personally know a woman, have known her since age 5, with fetal alcohol syndrome. She is just plain stupid. She lacks common sense. She can’t hold a job, she can’t write, she gets dehydrated to the point of entering an ER because she forgets to drink, she gets in weird situations like almost moving to the middle east to “marry” a foreign exchange student she met only on the internet, and only didn’t go because she couldn’t put the steps together to get her passport. She is currently sharing an apartment with junkies, although she does not use.
Last year she was raped, and gave birth to a baby a few months ago. She loves the baby. She’s raising this baby, in her junkie apartment, without enough sense to drink enough water herself or put sunscreen on when she is outside. She gets some welfare and is in regular contact with social workers. Nobody is taking the baby away.
This apparently perfectly normal baby is being raised by this woman. She is not in any but a physical sense an “adult.”
If this evil thinking, conservative libertarian may offer some advice-
While I have a great deal of sympathy for your concern, stupidity, risky lifestyle or a lack of common sense does not make a person incompetent. The best thing that people concerned for this person and her child can do is to check in on her and offer help-that is also, I believe, what we, as Christians are bound to do.
Perhaps a church group or concerned individual can work with her a few times per week on things like parenting skills, and check in to see that she has proper food and such for the child and herself? Maybe teach her some basic shopping and cooking skills-where I worked, we used to do that with mentally retarded adults who lived independently. It also allows them to interact with responsible adults and so serves as an example. This is not just Pollyanna psychobabble-it works.
I’ve had many clients over the years who were as bad or worse than you describe-we were taught to always err on the side of the client’s wishes, period, no matter who it pissed off.
The reason that such laws were passed in the first place was the abuse of the disabled and elderly by “normal” relatives-putting them in dangerous and abusive institutions, etc. to get them out of sight so they would not have to own personal responsibility (there’s that word again!). I’ve witnessed the results of that custodial treatment firsthand, and having done so will always put the clients wishes first-most of those places are worse than prisons.
Please do try to help the woman you referenced-she may be stupid and lacking in sense, but she is still a child of God, as are we all.