Last week I wrote about a new bill in Indiana that forbids disability-selection and sex-selection abortion. The latter almost never happens. The former happens all too often. The combination is an attempt to do two things: 1) split the pro-choice and disability rights movement and 2) gain support for abortion restrictions by nominally pro-choice individuals…
On Friday I wrote my second piece for Reproductive Health Reality Check about fighting the divide and conquer attempts to sever the disability rights movement and the pro-choice movement. I offer two core premises that I want to make sure you don’t miss. I believe the solution lies in an intersectional approach based on each community…
Ellie building the Lego “Research Lab.” My daughter, Ellie, who is 5: I wonder why people make pants without pockets. Me: It’s because clothing designers believe girls don’t need pockets. Ellie: We should go to a clothing designer and say, ‘Hey! Put pockets in girl pants.’ And they’ll say, ‘Why? Girls don’t need pockets.’ And then…
District Attorney Kari Brandenburg decided to skip the grand jury process and charge the officers who killed James Boyd, a man with psychiatric disabilities, with murder. Grand juries don’t want to indict cops. Juries don’t want to convict cops. But at least there will be a day in court. Here’s what the defense will say:…
Yesterday I had a piece in the Motherlode blog of the New York Times. I talk about the ways that parents of kids with disabilities are shamed when their children act in atypical ways. And I argue that this shame matters – that it drives parents to isolate and works against my goal of an…
Two years ago, tonight, three off-duty deputies moonlighting as mall security killed Ethan Saylor. They killed Ethan Saylor by forcing him to the ground, fracturing his trachea. They killed him because they couldn’t figure out how to deal with a large, cursing, man with Down syndrome. They killed him because no one in the theater,…
Today is my son’s birthday. He’s eight. I used to feel that I needed to spend the day writing about our diagnosis story. It felt important to me to talk about these challenging hours, days, and week as we transitioned from shock and mourning to the deep pleasures of parenting our new baby boy. But you…
For the next few days, Community Colleges will be in the news, thanks to the president’s proposal. #FreeCommunityCollege was the top trending hashtag in the U.S. yesterday. There are lots of news reports and surely hundreds of think pieces to come. My basic assessment is that it’s a good plan that if enacted, because it’s not a…
The Open Doors Organization offers free training sessions to ground crew in how to load powered mobility devices onto airplanes. They also have cards depicting loading techniques – where to lift, where not to lift, how to pack safely, how to detach pieces – that allow for non-verbal communication in noisy areas (like the tarmac)….
I am writing a new piece on airplane travel for wheelchair users. There is a movement underway to design a wheelchair restraint system for airplane cabins. The idea is that the wheelchair user could simply roll onto the airplane and be locked in place safely, rather than being transferred to a chair. There are a…