Caterina then describes the therapies, visibility and support Pippa needs both now and when she’s older. “She’ll need some supports to get an equal shot at life,” she writes for GMA. “She’ll need equity.”
She also makes it clear that there’s a distinction between equity and equality. “Equity is a more useful word than equality,” Caterina states. “Equity embraces our differences. Equality sometimes accidentally erases them and in so doing, creates disadvantage and inequality for a great many people.”
For people to have equity, she continues, “We each need to be seen as worthy and precious because of, rather than despite our differences.” As she explains, this is achieved through a number of ways, including having “our uniqueness” seen and protected by legislation and social structures.
“For us to organize ourselves in a way that allows for equality in the fullness of our difference, we need to remember that every individual human being is the point,” she later adds. “Each unique person is the whole story, interconnected fractals of a wholeness called ‘love.’ No one is less or more useful on the way toward something else. Human beings seen as a means is exploitation. Human beings seen as an end is dignity. It’s love.”
