Baby Taken Away Because Mom’s ‘Disabled’

There is a similarity between the pattern of taking away autonomy in assisted suicide and this kind of common behavior by so-called "social services"...
http://goo.gl/BhDprU

In a move that could have far-reaching effects for the estimated 4.1 million parents in the United States who have disabilities, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services jointly issued a strongly worded rebuke to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, accusing them of violating the rights of a parent with mild intellectual disability.  

The federal departments found that the Massachusetts DCF systematically and illegally discriminated against a mother known pseudonymously as Sara Gordon in court papers, whose baby was removed from her care by DCF at two days old. DCF has begun proceedings to terminate Gordon’s parental rights.       

“The departments’ investigation has revealed that DCF has committed extensive, ongoing violations of Title II and Section 504 [of the Americans With Disabilities Act] by discriminating against Sara Gordon on the basis of her disability, and denying her opportunities to benefit from supports and services numerous times over the past two years, including her existing family supports,” the jointly written letter, dated Jan. 29, states. “The departments find that DCF acted based on Ms. Gordon’s disability as well as on DCF’s discriminatory assumptions and stereotypes about her disability, without consideration of implementing appropriate family-based support services.”


NDY Introduces Disability Rights Toolkit for Advocacy Against Legalization of Assisted Suicide

http://nblo.gs/13fgn0

With assisted suicide bills pending in many states, disability rights advocates are needed to help oppose them.  Not Dead Yet Colorado just played a pivotal role in defeating an assisted suicide bill in that state, but bills are pending or expected in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, the District of Columbia and more.

Many of the national disability rights groups that oppose assisted suicide bills have chapters, affiliates and members in these states, so Not Dead Yet has developed a Toolkit to assist them in advocating successfully.  NDY’s Disability Rights Toolkit for Advocacy Against Legalization of Assisted Suicide has embedded links to excellent resources on the assisted suicide issue, many of them provided by the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, including a very importantlegislative primer entitled “A Progressive Case Against Assisted Suicide Laws.”

The seven sections of the NDY Toolkit cover:

  1. Why disability advocacy groups oppose legalizing assisted suicide
  2. Educating and organizing disability opposition
  3. Meeting with legislators and policy leaders
  4. Testifying at hearings
  5. Working with the media
  6. Conducting direct actions – leafleting, rallying
  7. Working in coalition

Advocacy organizations may also like to include an article on the issue in organizational newsletters:  Why Do Disability Rights Organizations Oppose Assisted Suicide Laws?


Children’s Books Honored For Disability Storylines

http://goo.gl/941TOl

Three books are being honored for their portrayal of the disability experience through a special set of awards given alongside the well-known Caldecott and Newbery Medals.

The winners of this year’s Schneider Family Book Awards include tales of a boy who stutters, a girl with autism and young adults with intellectual disabilities during transition.

The Schneider awards are presented annually by the American Library Association to authors or illustrators for the “artistic expression of the disability experience.” One award is given for works aimed at each of three audiences — kids up to age 8, those ages 9 to 13 and teens.

In the youngest category, writer Alan Rabinowitz and illustrator Catia Chien won for their book “A Boy and a Jaguar,” about a young boy who stutters uncontrollably except when he talks to animals.

Ann M. Martin’s “Rain Reign” received the middle school award for depicting the life of a girl with autism who must break her routine in order to find her beloved dog who goes missing when a storm hits town.

“Martin creates an authentic portrayal of a young girl on the autism spectrum. In getting to know this resilient character, readers’ misconceptions about this disability will be altered,” said Alyson Beecher, chair of the Schneider Family Book Award.

Gail Giles won in the teen category for her book “Girls Like Us,” which follows two very different young women with disabilities who become roommates after completing a high school special education program.


I’m Autistic, And Believe Me, It’s A Lot Better Than Measles

http://goo.gl/PwMsPV

Having an autism spectrum disorder in an ableist world means that you’re constantly exposed to cruel irony. Most frequently, this comes in the form of neurotypical (i.e. non-autistic) people who tell you, incorrectly, that you can’t or don’t feel empathy like them, and then stubbornly refuse to care about your feelings when they claim that you’re lost, that you’re a burden, and that your life is a constant source of misery for you and everyone who loves you. There’s also my current favorite: parents who are willing to put the lives of countless human beings at risk because they’re so afraid that the mercury fairy will gives their kids a tragic case of autism if they vaccinate. Gotta protect the kids from not being able to feel empathy — who cares whether other children live or die?

No matter what other lofty ideas of toxins and vaccine-related injury anti-vaxxers try to float around in their defense, that’s really what all of this is about: we’re facing a massive public health crisis because a disturbing number of people believe that autism is worse than illness or death. My neurology is the boogeyman behind a completely preventable plague in the making.


Early childhood programs found to significantly lower likelihood of special education placements in third grade

http://goo.gl/yWhAVx

Access to state-supported early childhood programs significantly reduces the likelihood that children will be placed in special education in the third grade, academically benefiting students and resulting in considerable cost savings to school districts, according to new research published today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.

The findings suggest that the programs provide direct benefits not only to participating students but also to other third graders through positive spillover effects.


Maternity Leave Policies in America Hurt Working Moms

Thanks and a hat tip to Aimee S...

http://goo.gl/Yu6Wif

The confluence of all these factors means that women are now having babies smack in the middle of their peak earning periods and that their earnings are crucial to the economic stability of their families. And there is no denying that motherhood makes an economic and practical dent in the shape and solidity of their careers. University of Massachusetts sociologist Michelle Budig has found that, on average, an American woman’s earnings decrease by 4 percent for every child that she bears, a figure that sounds even more brutal when compared to the fact that after men have kids, their earnings increase, on average, by 6 percent. Researchers have also found that fathers are more likely to be hired and to be regarded as more competent employees than mothers.

These gendered discrepancies in post-childbirth careers can be understood via a host of historical assumptions about mothers and fathers; hoary ideas about providers versus nurturers, masculine responsibility versus feminine pliability. And, of course, there is the stratospheric cost of unsubsidized American childcare, a factor that leads many more women than men to drop out of the workforce or cut back on their professional commitments. These realities are abhorrent, but they are, at least, studied. What goes less noticed is the way pregnancy and immediate postpartum life itself plays a serious role in slowing professional momentum for women for whom the simple—and celebrated—act of having a baby turns out to be a stunningly precarious economic and professional choice.

My Country

http://goo.gl/5edezT

In this one-hour documentary originally shown on PBS, symphony conductor James DePreist, who contracted polio as a young man, profiles three people with disabilities whose lives have been shaped by the struggle for equal rights. Mr. DePreist is the nephew of African American contralto Marian Anderson, who in 1939 was prevented from singing at Constitution Hall. He draws parallels between racial barriers and the barriers faced by people with disabilities.


How Mainstream Feminism Continues to Perpetuate Ableism (And How We Can Change That)

http://goo.gl/8JdheS

We continue to use ableist metaphors and language in these spaces. Often, we use these phrases as ways to describe our thoughts, but ultimately we continue to equate disability as a Bad Thing and use ableist language for its negative connotation.

And we wonder why disabled people often feel that mainstream feminism leaves both disabled people and disability issues out of the conversation entirely.

When disabled people are continually overlooked as a marginalized identity, it makes the consequences of our oppression even worse.

So until disabilities are no longer seen as an inherently Bad Thing (which is a whole other conversation), we need to be very intentional about not using ableist language – especially when talking about social justice.

As feminists, our conversations have to change.


Fractured moments

http://goo.gl/KyTfFE

Last year a colleague offers a cruel put down that I realised at the time was meant to bully me, but I did not know how to respond. I have moved on but when I asked others to interpret the comments, they were horrified, whereas I had just accepted them, responded ambivalently and then perseverated for six months (in true aspie style). On the other hand a text or email from a close and normally positive friend or colleague can cause me to think I am being put down or told off, when this may not be the case.