6/3/25 - More RFK Jr., institutional horrors, and an election win
Institutionalizing disabled people is bad. It's always bad.
Hello!
The first two links for today a bit scary and depressing. The third is, I think and hope, something we can celebrate.
RFK Wants to Send People to ‘Wellness Farms.’ The US Already Tried That.
Kathryn Waring, Teen Vogue - April 17, 2025
"Wellness farms aren’t about wellness at all. In practice, history shows us, they’re about eliminating disabled people from public life ... In 1899 the Craig Colony’s Dr. Spratling proclaimed, 'Epilepsy is not so much a disease that can be reached with a single drug or the contents of a written prescription. It is more a condition that pervades every part of the human economy, a condition that needs to be eradicated, educated out of the system, so to speak.' Compare this to RFK Jr.’s assertion that disabled people taking psychiatric drugs should 'learn to get re-parented.' When a statement from the US health secretary in the 21st century sounds like a quote from 1899, I’d argue that’s a return to eugenics, not an endorsement of modern medicine."
It was hard to pick a suitable quote to sum up the existential dread a great many disabled people feel when hearing about RFK Jr.'s theories about wellness, chronic illness, and disabilities, which is very well described in this article. You really need to read the whole piece. It explains and describes part of disability history that I am ashamed to admit I knew nothing about – farms and colonies established in the late 1890s and early 20th century specifically for people with certain disabilities. I knew about old-style institutions of course, and the ongoing movement that began around the 1960s to move away from them. But the whole farm / rural colony approach is new to me. The fact that it was at least partially well-intended but pretty horrible in practice rings familiar. And it's also clearly a precursor to present-day "wellness" thinking. Talk about eugenics and forced wellness models in relation to RFK Jr. and his "Make America Healthy Again" campaign can sometimes sound weird and alarmist. But as this article suggests, the connection is real, and we would be fools to underestimate the danger.
‘Shocking’ report spotlights Mass. history of mistreating disabled people
Meghan Smith, WGBH Boston - May 21, 2025
"The findings about unmarked graves are part of a newly released reportfrom the Massachusetts Special Commission on State Institutions, which investigated how the state has mishandled decades of public records relating to disabled residents who lived in state institutions."
Institutionalizing disabled people is bad. It's always bad. It doesn't much matter what the specific settings are like, or whether it's run as for-profit, not-for-profit, or directly by government agencies. Using new, progressive-sounding terms to describe it – like "intentional communities" or "villages" – doesn't help. The problem isn't whether the people running them are nice or cruel, honest or corrupt. The problem is that trying to help disabled people by putting them all together in one place, under one program, served by one staff, where their lives exist all within a controlled bubble inevitably leads to unwarranted restriction and abuse. And we shouldn't think that because situations like those in this Massachusetts report are about the past means they can't happen today. They can and do happen today.
Ali France's election isn't just a boon for Labor — it's big for the disability community too
Nas Campanella, Australian Broadcasting Corporation - May 10, 2025
"Ali France couldn't be prouder of her two best friends ... They give her support and are an extension of herself ... 'My first best friend is my prosthetic leg and my second is my wheelchair,' she told ABC NEWS this week ... In a matter of weeks, Ms France and her two best friends will enter the House of Representatives with pride."
Some of us in the disability and politics community have I think become a little more hesitant to get too excited by any particular disabled person being elected to office. Simply having a disability doesn't automatically mean understanding other disabled people's needs and what that should mean for lawmaking and policy. But this new member of Australia's House of Representatives certainly seems like she's going to be a good representative not just for her district, but for disabled Australians in general.
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