Politically incorrect post – what’s normal?

I remember a few years ago being told about a conversation to with people suffering from disabilities. Person X stated that people with disabilities are ‘not normal’, to which person Y replied ‘well…what’s normal?’ Suggesting that no individual is normal.

According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of normal is as follows –

normal

• adjective 1 conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

• noun 1 the normal state or condition.

If we were to look at some statistics for the UK regarding people with disabilities, what conclusions can be drawn?

According to Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), it is estimated that there are about 9.8 million people in the UK with some form of disability – approximately one in seven of the population.

If just one in severn of the population has some form of disability (and this covers the entire range of disabilities from very minor to the most sever) can it be considered conforming to a standard? Typical? Expected?

My view is no, if I am truly honest with myself, I do not expect to see a person with a disability. Surely, it’s resonable to be of the opinion that people with disabilities are not normal?

I have a number of close friends who are partially deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate with those that do not sign. So this post is not about any prejudices against people with disabilities. My issue is with the suggestion that people with disabilities are the same as everyone else. They aren’t, they have a disability. Just like some people can run fast, others can paint and so on…

I think the issue is that people have stigmatised the term ‘normal’ by accompanying it with a foolish and ignorant impression of someone with a disability. The same situation occurred when a charity here in the UK was forced to change it’s name from The Spastics Society to Scope.

Opinions?