Medicine: Rights for Epileptics

An epileptic living in Delaware is prohibited from driving a car, is branded a criminal if he tries to marry, and can be sterilized on the decision of community or state officials, none of whom need be doctors. His plight, duplicated to some extent in nearly half the 48 states,-is caused partly by the fear that he will have a seizure endangering others (e.g., while driving), partly by the belief that epileptics are mental defectives and that their illness is hereditary. The truth is that, while it is rarely cured, the use of modern drugs, and sometimes brain surgery, makes it possible to control epilepsy. Last week, at a special conference in New York of the American League Against Epilepsy, the league’s legislative committee demanded justice for the nation’s 800,000 epileptics. Basing its findings on a two-year study by Dr. Roscoe L. Barrow, dean of the University of Cincinnati College of Law, the league noted: ¶”Epilepsy is not inheritable, although a [recessive] tendency to seizures may be . . It is unrelated to the intelligence level or to deterioration of the brain.”

¶ “Medical progress [has made it possible to achieve] complete control of seizures in 50% of cases, and nearly complete control in an additional 30% of cases . . .”

¶ “The performance record of epileptics is equal to that of unimpaired workers; most epileptics are capable of full vocational rehabilitation.”

¶ “Fear of legal sanctions against . . . marriage increases tension, and the resulting maladjustment may add a formidable obstacle to successful treatment.”

¶ “The stigma attached to epilepsy since preBiblical times … is a formidable obstacle to their social rehabilitation . . .

Eugenic sterilization laws apply to idiots, epileptics or the insane, equating epileptics with the mentally ill.”

The league flatly demanded that state sterilization and antimarriage laws be revised to exempt epileptics, recommended that epileptics be allowed to drive after a two-year period free of seizures. The league also asked that states encourage employers to hire epileptics by passing laws exempting the employer from liability if an epileptic is injured as the result of a seizure. Employers’ baseless fears that epileptics will be more accident-prone have left half the nation’s epileptics unemployed, saddled the states with an unnecessary economic burden.

*Nineteen states have sterilization laws specifically applicable to epileptics; 17 forbid them marriage (six states make marriage a crime); 16 refuse to let them drive.