When one thinks of disability, words such as “deformity”, “deficiency”, and “abnormality” govern one’s imagination. “Obviously, we should fix them for their own good,” people often say. This idea carries many unsaid prejudices, assumptions, arrogance, and a long-standing ableism that is often tacitly agreed upon instead of being closely examined and criticized. I firmly believe that disabled people do not need to be fixed, as this stance places the blame upon disabled individuals themselves while ignoring how disability is socially or biographically produced (Campbell, 2009). More often than not, this need stems from biopolitical repression of nonconformist bodies, therefore repressing anything extraordinary or opposed to mainstream ideals. What needs to be fixed is the ableist mindset that centers around narratives defining humanity and subjectivity in a narrow way.

According to disability scholar Fiona Campbell, ableism refers to “a network of beliefs, processes and practices that produces a particular kind of self and body that is projected as the perfect, species-typical and therefore essential and fully human” (Campbell, 2001). Disability, in its very word composition of “dis” before “ability”, is cast as a diminished state of being human that needs to be fixed to be fully human. Humanity itself is, problematically, made strictly contingent upon having an idealized, fully functional, and proportional body, reasoning capacity, and “normal” behavior, rather than just being human. This perspective perpetuates the misconception that differences from prescribed norms make one fundamentally the other and separated from the human experience, failing to account for the rich diversity of human lives and embodiments. It wrongly pathologizes ways of being that simply diverge from a narrow mainstream concept and breeds systemic inequalities and biases profoundly impacting people’s lives.

Moreover, such ableist notions do not recognize how environmental, social, and attitudinal barriers are more disabling than disabilities. Many disabled people and disability scholars have argued that the “disabling force”, societal ableism and marginalization of disabled people, is the true source of disability. Disability is neither a characteristic of a person nor an inevitable consequence of certain health conditions. Instead, it is “a socially determined outcome resulting from the operation of disabling and discriminatory cultural, social and environmental conditions” (Emerson et al., 2011). The real limitations are imposed by inaccessible infrastructure, discriminatory policies, and enduring biases – not the disability itself. According to World Health Organization, disabled people find inaccessible and unaffordable transportation 15 times more difficult than for those without disabilities (WHO, 2023). What’s more, over 60% of people with disabilities are of working age, but they experience an unemployment rate 80-100% higher than average non-disabled workers (ILO). These socioeconomic inequalities further exacerbate the living conditions of disabled people.

The ableist idea that disabled people are “less human” also enabled unethical practices in public health regulations during COVID-19. The pandemic significantly affected health systems worldwide, exposing and exacerbating multi-layered health inequities. People with disabilities, around 16% of the global population, often experience worse health outcomes than people without disabilities due to barriers to accessing healthcare (World Health Organization, 2022). While laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Protection of Disabled Persons guarantee equal access to governmental social services and medical care resources, disabled people had among the highest infection and death rates of any group during the COVID epidemic (Turk and McDermott, 2020). These inequalities are inextricably interconnected with the ableist assumption that disabled people have deficiencies that need to be fixed.

I believe that to dismantle ableism, we must center the lived experiences and perspectives of disabled people themselves, arriving at an understanding that disability is a natural part of humanity, not an inherently negative state requiring a fix. Throughout history, differences framed as deviations from a constructed “normal” ideal have been systematically targeted for eradication or fixing. Today, this logic extends even to the genetic level, with traits associated with neurodivergence like autism seen as undesirable and necessitating intervention. This pursuit of fixing differences serves to enforce a rigid vision of physical perfection and an idealized “good life”, as narrowly defined by those holding power and influence.

When buildings are designed from the outset with accessibility as the baseline, rather than treating it as an afterthought or special accommodation, disability is no longer framed as a lack or deviation from an assumed state of ability. Ultimately, the refusal of the other, the refusal to approach and understand differences, maintains exclusionary ideas about the human and the society. Only by opening ourselves to the vast multitudes of human subjectivities, experiences, and ways of being can we build a world of inclusion and diversity. For as Fiona Campbell argues, “Compulsory ableness and its conviction of sameness as the basis for equality claims results in a resistance to consider ontologically peripheral lives as distinct ways of being human” – a dangerous devaluation of human diversity itself (Campbell, 2009).

Rather than seeking to fix disability, I imagine a world where all humans are welcomed precisely in their differences – where the very notion of requiring fixing is rendered obsolete. Looking around my city, I see not “bodily deficiencies” requiring correction, but a world riddled with physical barriers, institutionalized ableism, and attitudinal biases actively disabling populations from full societal participation. The assumption that disability needs to be fixed redirects public attention towards medicalized and corrective services rather than institutional support and understanding of harms of ableism. It is important for us to investigate how barriers arise not from the disability itself, but from social structures. What truly needs fixing are the exclusionary systems and the ableist misconceptions upholding them, not the disability itself. We must replace systems of marginalization with proactive efforts providing institutional supports, equal opportunities, and societal accommodation for all ways of existing and experiencing the human condition.

References

1. Campbell Fiona Kumari. Inciting legal fictions: Disability’s date with ontology and the ableist body of the law. Griffith Law Review. 10, 42–62. 2001.

2. Campbell Fiona Kumari. Contours of Ableism: The Production of Disability and Abledness. Palgrave Macmillan 2009.

3. Emerson, E et al. “The health of disabled people and the social determinants of health.” Public health vol. 125,3 (2011): 145-7. doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2010.11.003

4. International Labor Office. Disability Discrimination at Work Fact Sheet.

5. Turk, Margaret A, and Suzanne McDermott. “The COVID-19 pandemic and people with disability.” Disability and health journal vol. 13,3 (2020): 100944. doi:10.1016/j.dhjo.2020.100944

6. World Health Organization. Global report on health equity for persons with disabilities. World Health Organization, 2022. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240063600 

7. World Health Organization. Disability and Health. World Health Organization, 2022. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health