I have one question for you.
Feministe. Feministing. Shakesville. Bitch. Kate Harding, Jezebel and Broadsheet.
Every big feminist-inclined blogger who has shown such urgency and import about Stupak and abortion-within-healthcare-reform. Every feminist blogger who has used their standing, their wide audience, to urge people to do something to change this bad thing that is going to happen to people like us.
You’ve been there for all the women with functional reproductive capacity.
Because this is just as urgent an issue. And just as timely: it is being considered in the current health-care reform package. This one. This same one with Stupak (or analog). This same one you are fighting to improve for the sake of women.
Where have you been for years on the Community Choice Act?
We are talking about policy that is cheaper than subsidizing the cost of placing someone in a modern institution (nursing home, “senior living,” “care home” and the like), that allows women to have independence, autonomy, and self-determination. We are talking about a policy that gives women control over their bodies and the direction of their lives.
Just like access to affordable abortion.
We are talking about policy that lets disabled and elderly people live out in their own communities, with home services that allow them to get by on their own.
We are talking about fighting modern institutionalization, which is alive and well and still just as horrific as the stories from those old abandoned state buildings you’ve all heard about.
We are talking about saving people from being corralled, shepherded, and treated like livestock. Saving people from abusive situations, from sexual assault, from neglect and starvation.
This affects women.
Why aren’t you there with them?
Why don’t I see this addressed with nearly the same frequency or urgency? Nearly the same sense of importance, immediacy?
Because it is quite immediate to quite a lot of people. People who do not have the power you hold in our political system. (Oh, you may hold less than your male-identified young, abled, financially-privileged counterparts. But you still hold a great amount of power compared to many who are not in such a position.) People who need allies to fight with them. Let me spell that for you: N-E-E-D. They cannot see progress for as long as their younger, more abled peers continue to ignore them.
This is your chance to do something that makes an enormous difference.
If you aren’t familiar with this issue, I suggest you make yourself familiar with it. Learn about ADAPT. Read about the CCA and the arguments for it. Look into your local Independent Living center and see about opportunities for volunteering. Whether it’s high-minded political activism or low-status work doing the caring and cleaning and cooking.
Read up about disability activism, and read up about today’s institutions. Force yourself to confront reality.
And, maybe, use that platform you’ve got to share your new knowledge with others.
We need you.



















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