Satz on "Normal Species Functioning" in Disability Law

New on SSRN: Ani Satz, A Jurisprudence of Dysfunction: On the Role of 'Normal Species Functioning' in Disability Analysis, 6 Yale J. Health Pol'y, L. & Ethics 221 (2006). The abstract:

This article considers the proper role of normal species functioning in disability analysis. Failure to consider properly the role of normal functioning has profoundly impacted American disability law by creating divergent outcomes in the application of established United States Supreme Court tests and severely undermining protections for persons with disabilities. This article examines competing, dominant conceptual models of functioning, the Supreme Court's use of these models, and then proposes a novel conceptual framework, which requires a blend of the models as applied to three distinct levels of disability analysis. This article is a discrete and integral part of disability law reform, bearing on the tension between civil rights and social welfare models of disability law.