Source: On this episode Boris is joined by his boss's boss and the executive director of Able South Carolina, Kimberly Tissot to discuss the challenges facing parents with disabilities and what the Persons with Disabilities Right To Parent Act did for South Carolina's families.
Transcript
00:00 Boris Klaric: Good morning, my name is Boris Klaric.
00:03 Kimberly Tissot: And I'm Kimberly Tissot.
00:08 BK & KT: And you're parked in The Access Aisle.
[pause]
00:12 BK: On the Access Aisle we’ve talked a lot about the rights and protections of people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but there are still discriminatory state laws that confuse efforts to end different treatment based on a person’s disability status. Here in South Carolina as recently as two years ago, parents with disabilities could have their children removed and parental rights terminated just because they had a disability. The good news is, in South Carolina disability rights activists stood up and worked alongside legislative partners to bring about the Persons with Disabilities Right to Parent Act and with me today is one its architects, Kimberly Tissot.
00:47 KT: Thank you. Yeah, yeah. So I think a lot of folks who have disabilities, men, women, everybody, there's always a desire to be a parent. Sometimes that course to become a parent can be difficult. It could be difficult in a variety of ways, it could be because somebody's disability is directly impacting somebody's ability to actually naturally carry a child. It's also moving forward with going to the next steps of adoption. And then also sometimes when parents with disabilities do have their children, there are difficulties with what the outside folks, the community thinks that they're capable of doing and sometimes their rights are violated.
01:37 BK: Absolutely. So what brought you into that realm of advocacy that you really wanted to help parents with disabilities?
01:45 KT: Well, I have a physical disability and I've had one since I was two. I had cancer and some of the side effects completely kind of wiped out my ability to naturally have a child. But... So I always wanted to be a mom. I knew whatever it was, I was gonna be a mom. So I... We did a number of things once I got married and we did a number of things with going to fertility clinics, tried surrogacy, got a egg donation, a number of things, and all of that failed. And when we went to go adopt, we decided to adopt from our state because we did know that there are a lot of children in our state that need forever homes.
02:32 BK: Absolutely.
02:32 KT: And we could be one of those forever homes and so we felt like we were ready to be a parent and when we went to our state's child welfare system, the first session of learning about adopting, we were told that people with physical disabilities like myself are not allowed to adopt. Of course, I always laugh and tell people, "Well, they did not know who they were messing with." You never know who's a disability rights advocate out there. And so I did a little bit of investigating within the system and learned that this was not a policy of theirs, that this was just a staff member's perception of who can and can't adopt a child from the state's child welfare system. So we did do some pushing back. Luckily, we do have federal legislation that protects the rights of people with disabilities, so we were able to pursue the adoption process. We were very lucky and we did end up with a very young baby. And he's nine years old today and is adopted. But it should have never... It should have never been a fight, especially when there's so many kids that are waiting to have families. But the perception of what I can and can't do because of my disability got in the way. And I heard stories and especially in my role as the Executive Director here, we heard that children were being removed from very great parents.
04:17 BK: And sometimes at birth.
04:18 KT: At birth because of what they, what doctors and nurses thought a person is not capable of doing. And so we just kept hearing horror stories and we did some digging into our own state law and learned that we actually had a law in South Carolina that said that people with disabilities could have their child removed and their rights can be terminated simply on the basis of who they are. So obviously that was a huge rights issue, but also violated the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which states that any state agency, federal agencies receiving federal funds must accommodate people with disabilities and provide equal services which includes adoption and foster care. And it also violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. So we decided to move forward with writing a law that would remove any type of discrimination for the rights of parents with disabilities and prospective parents. So anybody who's wishing to become a parent,
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