Handicap And Equality - Peter Hammill

All men are born equal at the moment they arrive:

Check the limbs and senses we require to survive

But some come deaf and dumb and blinded

Some have damage to their brains;

Parents constantly reminded

That they’ll never play the normal children’s games

They may not be normal

But they’re people just the same

If Christ had been born defective

To fulfil the Father’s plan

Would he be as easily accepted as God made man

Or does the human value alter

In the crippled human frame?

Though the tongue and fingers falter

Must we shut them out and shut them up

And shut the case and whisper «such a shame»

That’s how we shut them away

Most of us are lucky

Free from accidents at birth

But their victims share our right

To the inheritance of earth

For all their grunts, their stumps, their tumours

Their eternal wheelchairs

We’re the freaks, we’re the inhumans

If we close our eyes and turn aside

Pretend that if we do they’ll not be there…

They’ve got to face it, so we’ve got to face it

Still, they’ve got to live with it

In a world we supposedly share