REGULATING THE PRIVATE RELATIONS OF ADULTS WITH MENTAL DISABILITIES -OLD LAWS, NEW POLICIES, HOLLOW HOPES

Recent legislative reforms have aimed to help people with mental disab ilities pursue more ''normal'' lives. Yet, current laws regulating the mentally disableds' private relations continue to disenable them. Soc ial scientists have asserted that people with mental disabilities vary widely in their individual competencies. Yet, laws tend to forgo an i ndividualized approach to the mentally disabled in favor of broad rest rictions on their rights to engage in sexual, marital, and parental re lationships. Reviews of cases also show that when they challenge these restrictions, the mentally disabled tend to be required to demonstrat e a higher level of morality and functioning than non-disabled. Reform ing these restrictive legal rules requires an unlikely, but possible, concordance between social science and the law.