Unfortunately, you can't make this type of story up. Just pathetic that in this day and age people with intellectual disabilities are still being referred to by a phrase that is so stigmatizing that most states have removed it from offices and state legislation. What's it going to take to wake folks up in Virginia?
The Virginia House of Delegates on Wednesday rejected an attempt to remove the words "mental retardation" from a bill that seeks to appropriate $30 million to a special fund to move residents of the state's training centers into community-based housing.
Del. Robin Abbott, D-Newport News, asked legislators to change the phrase "mental retardation" to read "intellectual and developmental disabilities."
"These words are very damaging and hurtful and there is no excuse for them to be in our code today," Abbott said.
House members rejected Abbott's request, not because members liked the term "mental retardation," but because those words already appear in many places in the state code.
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