In a separate vote, Senate Republicans defeated a measure to ratify a landmark United Nations treaty banning discrimination against people with disabilities. The final vote was 61-to-38, five votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval. Republicans objected to the measure by saying it would make it easier to obtain abortions and place restrictions on home-schooling disabled children. The rejection came despite the U.N. treaty itself being modeled on a piece of U.S. law, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Some 126 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, have already ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. At the United Nations, Werner Obermeyer of the World Health Organization noted that the treaty rejected by Republicans covers about 15 percent of the world’s population.

Werner Obermeyer: “People with disabilities make up 15 percent of the world’s population, as you’ve heard, and have worse health and socioeconomic outcomes than people without disabilities. Across the world, people with disabilities have poorer health, lower education achievements, less economic participation and higher rates of poverty than people without the disabilities. This unacceptable situation must change.”