Loss of Advocates Doug Martin and Drew Batavia
Two prominent disability advocates died this past week: Doug
Martin, who was a pioneer in work disincentives reform, and Drew Batavia, a
leading proponent of access to health care for people with disabilities. Both
were much too young, and leave behind a saddened disability community.
Celebrate their lives by carrying on their advocacy.
Testimonials and an obituary follow.
Jonathan Young, PhD
JFA Editor, AAPD
==========================
Janine Bertram Kemp <JanineBK@AOL.COM> writes:
January 3, 2003
Dear Colleagues, I have just learned that Doug Martin died last night.
Apparently his vent came loose during the night and no one heard it beeping.
I don't know how many of you knew him. He was from LA. I think was one of the
founders of the Westside Center for Independent Living and spent many years on
its board. I gained the great privilege of his friendship during the time he
was regularly lobbying in Washington for the first act to end Social Security
work disincentives. In a wonderful twist of fate, he was the first person to
use the act when he went to work as 504 Coordinator for UCLA.
He was a brilliant advocate with great humor and high principles: a giant of a
man. I'm sure I join many in feelings of utter devastation at his loss. Fly
high, dear Doug. Head towards that light.
Janine Bertram Kemp
===========================
From the Miami Herald:
Andrew Batavia, who helped write ADA, dies
By Elinor J. Brecher
Miami Herald
January 7, 2003
Andrew Batavia, the Miami Beach lawyer who helped write the landmark Americans
with Disabilities Act and crusaded for legalizing doctor-assisted suicide,
died Monday at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. He was 45.
His wife, Cheryl Nicholson Batavia, said he had been experiencing
complications from a chronic urinary tract infection and had been hospitalized
twice in the past month.
Batavia, who was quadriplegic, was an associate professor of public-health
policy at Florida International University and a former partner at the Miami
law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery.
He had been in a wheelchair since he was injured in a car wreck when he was 16
in Yonkers, N.Y.
From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, he worked in Washington, where he
helped write the ADA in 1989. He was a special assistant to Attorney General
Richard Thornburgh in the first Bush administration, associate director of the
White House Domestic Policy Council and executive director of the National
Council on Disability.
He was a White House Fellow and later served as Arizona Sen. John McCain's
legislative assistant.
A prolific writer on disability and right-to-die issues, he briefly wrote a
disability issues column for The Miami Herald in 1997 after moving to South
Florida because he liked the warmer weather.
Batavia filed a Friend of the Court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997,
favoring the right of a person with a terminal illness to choose his or her
time of death, a position vigorously opposed by many other disability
activists who feared it would lead to abuse of the rights of people with
disabilities.
Batavia spent a year in rehabilitation following the car crash in which he was
a passenger and returned to Lincoln High School in Yonkers, becoming class
president.
He graduated from the University of California at Riverside and Harvard Law
School and earned a master's degree in health services research at Stanford
University Medical School.
"If I have one sentence to say about him it would be: 'Give me a challenge,
because I love challenges,'" said his mother, Renee Batavia of Boynton Beach.
"That's how he spent his whole life. I never regarded him as disabled because
he didn't regard himself as disabled and never used it to get anything for
himself."
In 1997, Cheryl and Drew, as he was known, adopted two Russian children: Joe,
now 12, and Katerina, now 11. Drew feared they would be denied the adoption
because of his condition, so Cheryl traveled alone to an orphanage in
Ekaterinburg, near Siberia.
He recently declared a "new joy initiative" for his family, said Cheryl, a
sixth-grade teacher at Florida International Academy. "Negativity would not be
tolerated. It was sort of annoying, but I found that he was right. He never
took anything for granted."
Batavia also is survived by his father, Gabe; brother Mitch Batavia of New
York; and sister Ellen Maher of North Miami. A memorial service is planned for
3:30 p.m. Saturday at Temple Beth Israel, 5008 W. Atlantic Ave., in Delray
Beach. His family plans to scatter his ashes at sea, according to his wife.
===========================
Steven Tingus of the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation
Research <Steven.Tingus@ed.gov>
writes:
January 8, 2003
It is with great sadness that I acknowledge the loss of Andrew I. Batavia.
Drew died on Monday, January 6th, attended by his wife and children in Miami
Beach, Florida. Drew was a friend to many of us so his loss is a personal one.
The loss is also great to the field of disability and health policy. Drew
Batavia conducted groundbreaking research on access to health services for
persons with disabilities, including a group of related articles published in
the late 1980s that helped create a framework for investigation of the linkage
between primary and rehabilitation medicine. In these articles and other
articles on access to health care, Mr. Batavia contributed to an awakening
concern about access to routine health care for individuals with disabilities
and the physical access and other barriers that limited such access. Mr.
Batavia and his colleagues were also among the first to identify the role of
access to health care in limiting employment options for persons with
disabilities.
Drew also conducted research on two other areas of critical importance to
disability policy research: managed care and long-term care. His research on
the impact of managed care on access to health care for persons with
disabilities helped policy makers understand that managed care has, on the one
hand, improved access to routine services for persons with disabilities, and,
on the other, established some access barriers to needed specialty services
and durable medical equipment. The research on long-term care reflected Drew's
great concern with quality of life for persons with disabilities.
The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) is
charged by Congress to fund research to improve the lives of individuals with
disabilities. NIDRR twice (1986 and in 2001) recognized Drew Batavia by naming
him a Distinguished Scholar in NIDRR's prestigious Mary Switzer Fellowship
Program. Mr. Batavia was a scholar, a teacher, and an intellectual leader in
the fields of disability and rehabilitation research.
Drew embodied the spirit of the independent living movement. He lived a life
of dignity, accomplishment, grace, and humor. He will be missed.
Steven James Tingus, M.S., C.Phil.
Director
National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
U.S. Department of Education
Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building
330 C Street, SW, Room 3060
Washington, DC 20202-2572
Phone: (202) 260-8134
Fax: (202) 205-8997
TTY: (202) 205-4475
E-Mail: Steven.Tingus@ed.gov
# # #
=====================
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