title: Human rights and intellectual disabilities in an era of 'choice'.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Efforts to uphold and promote the human rights of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) are being affected by the increasing emphasis on 'choice' in the delivery of social care services. While rights presume subjects or selves to whom they apply, there is a disconnect between the subjects presumed within human rights frameworks and the variable capacities of a heterogeneous ID population. This disconnect is amplified by choice discourses which characterise current service provision based upon neoliberal ideologies.
  
  
  METHODS
  Conceptual assumptions and theoretical positions associated with human rights in relation to people with ID are critically examined.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The analysis results in an argument that current conceptualisations of personhood in relation to human rights exclude people with ID. The adverse effects of this exclusion are exacerbated within services which emphasise the permissive rights associated with a neoliberal agenda of 'choice' over protective rights.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In order to ensure that the human rights of people with ID are upheld, neoliberal emphases on choice need to be tempered and a more nuanced and inclusive notion of personhood in relation to universal human rights needs to be adopted.
authors.affiliation: School of Sociology & Social Policy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fyson
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cromby
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000941:ethics*; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D004739:England; D006806:Human Rights / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D057187:Independent Living / Q000941:ethics / Q000592:standards; D008607:Intellectual Disability; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D028723:Personhood; D011057:Politics
keywords: choice; human rights; intellectual disability; neoliberal