Author: Grace W. Dow

It starts small. One day a letter arrives in the mail. Sometimes, a message pops up on an online portal. This is how Americans lose Medicaid. There is no fanfare, no moment of pause and consideration. It is a notice that could strip a person of their ability to get health care, to access life-saving… Continue reading The Notice That Changes Everything

CW: Death New Orleans is considering making major changes to its emergency response systems by integrating AI technology. For disabled residents, the changes could do more harm than good. With the city moving toward AI (artificial intelligence) assisted emergency response, there’s a pressing need for oversight to ensure all residents can still get help when… Continue reading A 911 Call Is a Human Moment

CW: Poverty The search for housing felt like a maze when Faith Owens first began looking for a place to live. She is a single mother living in Indiana on SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance). She didn’t understand how few paths were available to her and millions of other disabled Americans. In 2020, Apartment List… Continue reading When the Blueprint Forgets Us

CW: Pet Loss Caregiving is a deeply human experience. When someone spends a lot of time with someone, they begin to know who they are and what they need. While people like Marianne Cooper, who is a sociologist at Stanford University, talk about AI being used to help caregivers, the real essence of caregiving is… Continue reading The Human Bonds Technology Will Never Replace

CW: Mental Illness, Restraint, Death, and Institutionalization Last night, I watched the 1983 documentary Children of Darkness. The documentary was a glimpse into the past. However, parts of it felt painfully and scarily immediate. The documentary takes viewers inside places like Eastern State School, the Elan School in Pennsylvania, Sagamore Children’s Psychiatric Center on Long… Continue reading Children of Darkness and the Darkness We Still Live In 

I read a news article yesterday about a family in Telford, England that felt all too familiar. It’s not that their situation is unique. Unfortunately, it’s a story many disabled people and their families are familiar with. Victoria and Christopher are raising their seven-year-old son, Kian, who has Lissencephaly. Lissencephaly is a group of rare… Continue reading When Help Isn’t There

CW: Death If a wheelchair is broken, life can often stop. Getting out of the house can become impossible. Days become quieter not because they were chosen for rest, but because there is no way for someone to leave their bed. For many wheelchair users in Massachusetts, this is their reality. They have been waiting… Continue reading Wheelchair Woes

Every time I see headlines about states cracking down on “fraud” in Medicaid programs, I feel that familiar tightening in my chest. I am not surprised. I am worried, because I know exactly who gets hurt when policymakers start talking about fraud. The public version of the explanation is well known. There is too much… Continue reading What Policymakers Don’t Understand About Being Cared For 

CW: Institutionalization Some political issues hit close to home. When I first read Tim Shriver’s letter to his cousin, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., it felt deeply personal.Shriver wrote the letter in response to a Justice Department memo that reinterprets the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision. That decision made clear that disabled people have the… Continue reading Tim Shriver’s Letter to RFK Jr. Echoes What Disabled Americans Live Every Day

There are millions of disabled people in the country struggling. The fears are real, felt in social media posts, and in the quiet moments when someone is too tired to pretend everything’s fine. It’s a heaviness in the air, a slow unraveling that disabled people can sense immediately. It’s not loud or dramatic. It is… Continue reading The Quiet Erosion of Disability Rights