Restroom access no joke for sufferers by Laura Berman of The Detroit News Online

So today when doing my usual morning read of news feeds in Google Reader I came across an article that hit true to home for me.  The article was about a writer in Detroit, MI who has been working with government to have a law passed forcing facilities with employee only bathrooms to open those bathrooms to the public.  Why is she doing this?  Because, like me, she suffers from Crohn’s Disease.  The author of this article, Laura Berman, writes how when she first heard of this legislation she joked about it; like most do because they don’t realize just how hard it is for those of us with this disease.  It’s a short read and well worth your time.  The original article is located here; but I have included it behind the cut.

Restroom access no joke for sufferers by Laura Berman of The Detroit News Online

Last week, I took a swipe at legislators who couldn’t pass a budget but had time to “hash out legislation that will require stores to open their restrooms to the public.”

My comment was a stream-lined bathroom joke, a cleaned-up way to suggest that a law about bathrooms has to be trivial.

I apologize.

In her six-year fight to write this legislation and get it passed, Jill Sklar has heard plenty of dumb, insensitive jokes about the Restroom Access Act and, as she wrote me, “I am sick of it.

“For some reason, you think it’s laughable when a legislator takes the time to finally get it right and do something for those of us who would otherwise suffer in silence.”

Battling Crohn’s disease

Sklar, a Huntington Woods-based writer who battles Crohn’s disease, did not intend to become an advocate for people with serious gastrointestinal disorders. But she has lived through five surgeries that truncated her colon and small intestine, “adopted all lifestyle modifications possible, all to no avail in trying to control this monster inside of me.”

One of the consequences of the disease is that when she needs to use a restroom, she doesn’t have a lot of time for exploration. “It is incredibly embarrassing,” when there isn’t time to find one, she says.

Six years ago, Sklar, 38, who runs a six-minute mile and keeps up with her 11-year-old son, approached her state representative, Andy Meisner, D-Ferndale, and asked for help in getting a law passed that would give people suffering from colitis, irritable bowel syndrome and similar disorders access to employee restrooms in stores when public restrooms weren’t available.

Last week, amid a few remaining jokes and winks, in Meisner’s final term, the House passed the bill. “I think as soon as people listened to the testimony and understood that these conditions are god-awful” they supported it, Meisner said.

Humiliation cited

A formal House Commerce Committee hearing last month went a long way toward proving the case, he said: Sklar and others testified, often with tears in their eyes, about facing humiliation that could easily be prevented.

By then, he’d redrafted the bill to lessen the burden on shopkeepers, requiring ailing customers to carry a prescription from a physician, making it more difficult for them to sue in case of injury, and allowing store owners with fewer than three employees to opt out.

The Michigan Retailers Association enthusiastically backed the bill. Three states have passed similar laws in the last year, without opposition.

Meisner says retailers like the bill, because it will enable people like Jill Sklar to shop in Michigan stores rather than at home, on the Internet.

“It’s pro-business and pro-human,” he says.

Next week, the state Senate will have its chance to pass the Restroom Access Act, a move that could effectively change some lives for the better, improve Michigan retailers’ business and end the potty jokes in one merciful vote.

Originally posted at The WaxNation. Please leave any comments there. Posts on The WaxNation are written by either Kate or Dave Waxman; however livejournal can not display the author details thus to determine its author you must visit the original post.