Some Reflections on Access Equity
Charles E. M. Dunlop
Arguments for providing assistive technology to persons
with disabilities could be made from a variety of directions. For example,
as Dr. Maner has mentioned, there are severe economic repercussions issuing
from a failure to provide employment opportunities for individuals with
disabilities. He also points to a moral imperative, which I would like
to amplify here.
Although there may be no fundamental or inherent right to
computer access, I agree with Maner that, for people with disabilities,
the right to assistive technology is part and parcel of human rights that
are fundamental: the right to control one’s own life; the right to
self-expression; the right to participate in democratic institutions;
the right to develop one’s human potential [see also 4: 29]. Granting
computer access does not mean granting a right. The relevant rights are
already there. Thus, granting access to persons who are disabled amounts
to providing them with a vehicle for the exercise of their essential human
rights. For them, especially, access is empowerment.
Rights, of course, involve responsibilities. So, if someone
has a right to assistive technology, there must exist a correlative responsibility
to provide it. Frequently, discussions of responsibility take a rather
narrow perspective, focusing on “excusing conditions,” or the
circumstances under which a person is not responsible. John Ladd, however,
has developed what he calls a “comprehensive concept of moral responsibility”
[5]. It particularly emphasizes the promotion of the welfare of others,
and unlike narrower conceptions, it is non-exclusive. In other words,
if I am responsible for promoting the welfare of others, it doesn’t
follow that you are not. If we look at responsibility from this positive,
broad perspective, I think we gain a useful basis for the claim that there
exists a social responsibility to provide assistive technology to persons
with disabilities. Obviously, this claim is subject to a number of constraints,
e.g., scarcity of resources, high costs, and differing political philosophies.
But these are matters of implementation, and some of the discussion at
this conference has pointed out ways of dealing with them.
I have suggested that access may be viewed as empowerment – empowerment
to exercise one’s basic human rights. One of those rights is the right
to self-expression. I want to close my discussion with a passage from the Irish
writer, Christopher Nolan. This comes from his autobiography titled Under
the Eye of the Clock, published when he was 21 years old. Nolan suffered
oxygen deprivation at birth, has never been able to speak, and possesses very
little voluntary motor coordination. His initial verbal communication was not
accomplished by computer, but through a mouthstick with which he laboriously
pecked out letters on a typewriter while his mother’s hands cradled his
head. With a word processor and an adaptive interface, written communication
is a little easier now. Even so, the effort required is extreme, and Nolan’s
description reminds us the promise and limitations of assistive technology,
and the courage of those who use it:
Despite all hope, Joseph lay in his bed at night worrying and wondering. He was mesmerized by the promise within technology. Old sufferings would never again be silently lamented by speechless man, now great men were busy wrangling popular theses around yelling joy in brain-damaged man’s budding rescue. Joseph thought about his research. The freedom to move muscles voluntarily was denied him; he asked movement but all he ever got was busy, jerky, muffled movement. Hands that could involuntarily give knockout blows to anyone or anything near, became stiff and hesitant on being given a brain command. Similarly, when he tried to give a sideway flick of his chin to the switch for his computer, he found the effort exaggerated to mountainous proportions, so much so that his whole body had to gear itself in readiness to give what should have been but a slight flick of his head. Then as if that war was not great enough, he still found another cruel threat confronting him. He couldn’t even determine the precise moment at which to attempt the flick of his head. He was used to fouling-up his moment of anticipation when about to receive communion; he could wildly open his mouth when the priest entered his room or he could open it while the priest was saying the preparatory prayers, but by the time he needed to open his mouth to receive the host, his moment had passed and only sad desperation remained. So busy thinking was he that he jumped with fright, he nearly forgot his success at switching on and switching off his radio. But battles latent waited. He had to teach his muscles how to cram power into just one local movement and he had to try to find a way to anticipate the moment when he must nominate his ‘go’ signal. Seeing his needs didn’t mean he could solve his dilemma, but he dreamt nonetheless. [8: 85 – 6]
We’re here today because we want to encourage and share that dream.
University of Michigan at Flint
Home > Research Resources > Adaptive Technology > Equity and Access to Computing Resources > Some Reflections on Access Equity
HOME | IN
THE NEWS | RESEARCH
RESOURCES
TEACHING RESOURCES | STUDENT
RESOURCES | LINKS
The Research Center on Computing & Society
at Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent Street | New Haven, CT 06515
Director: (203) 392-6790 | e-mail: webmaster@computerethics.org
© 2000 – 2007 – Research Center on Computing & Society