SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
disability rights
War Zones In Nigeria Leave Disabled People Behind; In the US, We’re Doing It Too
The system that has failed Disabled people during Nigeria's security crisis is the same system that fails us here in not just natural disasters like hurricanes or wildfires, but active shooter situations, and immigration detention as well.
Aug 09, 2026
Hurricane season is upon us, and for many Disabled people across the US, it means a renewed sense of insecurity and uncertainty around their well-being. So often, Disabled folks are too often left behind in emergency preparedness and response efforts, and are ultimately treated as afterthoughts. With the 21st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching and a continued climate crisis with no end in sight, this glaring oversight is ever present in the minds of Disabled people nationwide.
This isn’t an issue that’s unique to the US, however. It’s something that Disabled communities face on a global scale, and it’s time we took a hard look at what countries across the world can do to center Disabled people in ensuring the safety and security of their citizens.
Take Nigeria, for example. A new investigation from Deaf Nigerian filmmaker and journalist Alexander Ogheneruemu, "Forgotten People," tells, in part, the story of Ayoade Beyioku-Alase, a Deaf man who was nearly killed as a child in Kano because the violence closing in on his house came with no siren, no interpreter, no warning he could access. "A Deaf person can walk right into the middle of danger," he says in the piece.
It’s easy for those of us in the US to read a story like this and feel far away from it. It’s easy to think, ,“This isn’t us.” The truth is that, whether we want to accept it or not, it is us. It just looks a little different.
Disabled people in the United States are two to four times more likely to die or be critically injured in a disaster than nondisabled people.
As a Disabled person who has worked in this space for many years, I can tell you that the system that has failed Disabled people during Nigeria's security crisis is the same system that fails us here in not just natural disasters like hurricanes or wildfires, but active shooter situations, and immigration detention as well. The threat might be different, but we have more in common with these failings than you’d be led to believe.
The alarm itself is the most direct parallel. Federal guidance from the Department of Justice acknowledges that most emergency warning systems in this country were built for people who can hear and see. Sirens, radio, television, flashing lights are all assumed to be visible to everyone. Tornado sirens across the Midwest and South are audio only, offering nothing to a Deaf person indoors when weather becomes a threat. The National Association of the Deaf has told emergency management agencies for years that mass notification systems don’t reach people who rely on video instead of standard calls. This is a serious and blatant example of ableism, where Disabled people are treated as an afterthought in emergency planning.
In Ogheneruemu’s "Forgotten People,” produced by the Disability Justice Project, the journalist says that 4,654 lives were lost in Nigeria's insecurity crisis last year. Our own numbers are just as alarming. Research compiled by the Center for American Progress and the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies puts it bluntly: Disabled people in the United States are two to four times more likely to die or be critically injured in a disaster than nondisabled people.
During Hurricane Katrina, people over 60 years old, who included many Disabled folks, made up 73% of storm-related deaths in Louisiana. According to the National Council on Disability, 68 of those victims died in nursing homes, some abandoned by staff who left rather than arrange evacuation. Twenty years later, not much has changed. When the Eaton Fire tore through Los Angeles in January of 2025, at least 3 of the 27 people killed were Disabled, and NBC News reported that Disabled people displaced by disaster are almost twice as likely not to return home.
Then there's our own man-made violence. Nigeria's crisis comes from armed conflict, and ours also often comes from gun violence. More than 100 US school shootings have happened since Sandy Hook in 2012, and the response drilled into an entire generation of children is to run and hide. Inherently, this completely excludes Disabled kids. The Washington Post and The Mighty have both documented children left alone in hallways, forgotten in therapy rooms, and locked out of safe zones during lockdowns because there wasn’t a plan that accounted for them. New Jersey only recently passed legislation forcing districts to build disability-specific evacuation plans after families spoke out. The message we’re sending to Disabled kids here is that they’re on their own.
The Disability Justice Project's own reporting has already shown us what this looks like at our own border: a Deaf asylum-seeker was held for five months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention without a sign language interpreter, ultimately unable to explain to anyone why he was afraid to go home. If disability access can vanish inside a US federal detention facility, we have no standing to act shocked that it vanishes during a flood or a fire.
This isn’t the kind of thing that’s unknowable, either. The data is out there, and the stories are plentiful. It’s simply not prioritized by those in power, and more often than not it’s unfunded. Disability still makes up just 2% of philanthropy, despite Disabled people comprising about 25% of the US population. Every dollar that goes toward disaster response, school safety, or immigration oversight without disability at the center is putting more Disabled folks in harm’s way. And even if that isn’t you, it could be your mother, father, child, friend, or neighbor. That’s why funding disability is more important than ever. We don't need another report to tell donors and policymakers that Disabled people die preventable deaths in emergencies.
Instead, we need them to stop treating that fact as new information every single time it happens. Funders, just like lawmakers and others in positions of power, need to wake up and see for themselves just what the disability community is up against.
If we can learn one thing from the security crisis in Nigeria, it’s that Disabled people deserve the same protections and safeguards that nondisabled people have in dangerous and precarious situations. It’s already too late, but in the US, in Nigeria, and in countless other countries, there’s still time to save many more Disabled lives.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Accused of 'Abandoning Kids With Disabilities' in New Assault on Education Department
"By moving special education from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services, the administration is taking us back to a dark period in American history."
Jun 17, 2026
The Trump administration accelerated its assault on the US Education Department on Tuesday by announcing that the agency's work defending civil rights and students with disabilities will be placed under the authority of other federal departments, a move that teachers, Democratic lawmakers, and advocacy organizations condemned as illegal and disastrous for vulnerable children.
Linda McMahon, the billionaire education secretary who has enthusiastically advanced the destruction of her own agency, announced the transfer of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services—which oversees the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)—to the US Department of Health and Human Services, headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Additionally, the Justice Department will oversee the work of the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, McMahon said, claiming the changes would "break down the bureaucratic barriers and strengthen the coordination of resources to improve programs that serve infants, toddlers, children, and adults."
Critics argued the moves would do the opposite, scattering crucial programs across departments that lack the expertise and resources to fulfill the education offices' mandates, ultimately depriving children and their families of support.
“Moving IDEA out of the Department of Education is not an administrative adjustment—it is an attack on the educational and civil rights foundation of the law," said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association. "It would drag us backward by treating disability as a medical issue instead of an educational right and by unraveling decades of progress. The Department of Education is the only federal agency with the expertise, infrastructure, and specialists needed to protect students’ rights and ensure they receive the services they are guaranteed."
"Relocating the Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice as part of this scheme would further erode federal oversight and endanger disability-rights enforcement nationwide," Pringle added.
The Arc of the United States, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said that "moving special education to HHS and civil rights enforcement to DOJ would split apart the offices responsible for making disability rights real in schools, leaving families chasing answers across the federal government instead of getting accountability from one education agency."
"Moving IDEA oversight into HHS pushes students with disabilities toward a medical model, where disability is treated as a diagnosis to manage instead of a natural part of human life," said Katy Neas, the group's CEO. "When that mindset drives education decisions, students are more likely to be segregated, underestimated, or treated as separate from the school community."
"It’s an outrageous betrayal that undoes decades of hard-won progress for students."
The changes that McMahon announced Tuesday are part of the Trump administration's effort to completely dismantle the Education Department, which cannot be legally abolished without congressional approval. The Washington Post noted that the newly targeted offices were among the last Education Department segments to "outsource major functions," underscoring that the administration's assault "has advanced far more than most observers predicted would be possible."
In addition to displacing agency functions, the Trump administration has gutted the Education Department's staff, firing nearly half of its workers in what opponents say is an obvious effort to decimate public education.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the transfer of critical functions out of the Education Department is unlawful, "usurping the power of the purse while the Republican majority stands idly by, forfeiting their authority as a co-equal branch of government." DeLauro pointed to language in a 2026 appropriations measure enacted earlier this year that prohibits the Education Department from transferring responsibilities to other federal agencies without congressional approval.
“This is a disgraceful violation of the law," DeLauro said Tuesday. "By moving special education from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services, the administration is taking us back to a dark period in American history. One where individuals with disabilities were viewed not as whole persons deserving of an education, but as medical patients whose education is not a priority."
The top Democratic appropriator in the Senate, Patty Murray of Washington, warned that "the Trump administration is abandoning kids with disabilities and its most basic legal responsibility to protect the rights of every student in the classroom."
"Instead of helping kids get a great education, this administration is spending its time, energy, and taxpayer resources fixated on where employees sit and illegally trying to shutter the Department of Education," said Murray. "It’s an outrageous betrayal that undoes decades of hard-won progress for students."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Climate Change Education Must Be Disability Inclusive
Safeguarding the rights of people with disabilities should be a priority for both the scientific and educational communities, and they need to partner with disabled students to get the job done right.
Jan 04, 2026
Let’s face it, whether you are a parent or teacher, a school principal or college president, if you care about students with disabilities under your care, then logic dictates you should care about climate change and its impacts on the most vulnerable among us.
In 2025 alone, major climate tragedies, such as Hurricane Melissa’s destruction in Jamaica and Cuba, extreme heatwaves across Europe, and floods in Southeast Asia, demonstrated a new reality for today’s college and K-12 students: We are seeing more extreme weather, and the most vulnerable among us, along with the elderly, are college and K-12 students.
Consider the fact that nearly 240 million children globally manage life with a disability, making them more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than the general population. They are among the most affected by sudden floods or mudslides; they cannot physically escape without help; they are most harmed by incapacitated roadways and shut-down transportation; and they are most vulnerable when it comes to diminished or defunded healthcare.
As a former public school teacher and a professor, I have witnessed firsthand the inadequacies of our disaster drills for students with disabilities. Some of the daunting questions that flashed through my mind during these drills were: Are school and university emergency shelters accessible to students in wheelchairs? Many communication systems and warning alerts depend on visual and auditory cues. What if a student is deaf and vision impaired?
The need for K-12 climate change education to be disability inclusive runs against the Trump administration’s attempts at dismantling special education.
As an author of two books on climate change and environmental justice education, when our policies and programs do not include disability access, I know we are failing to keep all children and students safe.
The need to provide accessible climate education is especially urgent in light of the recent 50th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). For five decades, IDEA has guaranteed every child in the United States a “Free and Appropriate Public Education.” Still, Congress’ promises remain largely unfulfilled, and schools struggle to fund services because they don’t receive adequate federal support.
However, in times of extreme weather, we must ask ourselves whether we are creating curriculum and safety plans that provide information needed to survive a sudden flood or severe heatwave. And we must consider whether our actions meet the letter of the law. A non-inclusive climate education is not just a curriculum gap; it is a violation of civil rights. We must treat students with disabilities as experts who can contribute to climate change action and activism, not just view them as people who need to be saved.
This means co-designing climate change studies with disabled students. A partnership. Co-designing (or redesigning) climate change curriculum offers teachers an excellent opportunity to tackle and overcome building design challenges. For example, students can design and engineer prototypes of multimodal emergency alert systems that can deliver warnings through sound, tactile vibration, and accessible text (such as large fonts or braille). Being intentional and thinking about accessibility throughout the design process benefits all students.
In addition, students can solve problems using a multidisciplinary approach across all subjects.
Students with disabilities can create and engineer prototypes of multimodal emergency alert systems that can deliver warnings through sound, tactile vibration, and accessible text, such as large fonts or braille—designs innovated via students’ life experiences and challenges. When working within the realm of visual color-coded maps meant to indicate levels of pollution or heat, students with eyesight challenges can create tactile, three-dimensional maps in clay or papier-mâché and attach braille labels. Other design solutions needed by disabled students during a climate event include supplying emergency electrical power for medical devices and refrigeration for certain medications, as well as access to emergency evacuation routes.
Furthermore, students with disabilities working on design and safety projects will be in a position to present their findings and projects to the city council, school board, and school PTA to advocate for increased accessibility at their school and in their community.
Researchers have also called on scientists to consider physical and mental ability when developing adaptations and responses to climate change. This provides students with an opportunity to glean from established scientific work to build their own solutions. Safeguarding the rights of people with disabilities should be a priority for both the scientific and educational communities, and they need to partner with disabled students to get the job done right.
The need for K-12 climate change education to be disability inclusive runs against the Trump administration’s attempts at dismantling special education. In fact, Trump’s administration has launched a war on disability, which has included removing the accessibility page and American Sign Language content from the White House website, removing interpreters from across multiple federal agencies, and openly using ableist slurs.
Urge your senators and representatives to support the IDEA Full Funding Act (S. 1277/H.R. 2598), co-sponsored by US Representative Jared Huffman, who represents California’s District 2.
The bill will ensure that Congress funds IDEA at the full 40%. And that means student designers will create a world accessible to everyone.
Keep ReadingShow Less
What's at Stake When the President Uses the R-Word
The real question is not whether Trump is allowed to use degrading language, but whether a president who does so honors the dignity of the office—or hollows it out from within.
Dec 27, 2025
When a president uses language that dehumanizes, it is not a matter of legality, it is a matter of dignity, and it signals who our society values. Every utterance from the Oval Office carries weight; it sets norms, authorizes behaviors, and communicates whose humanity is recognized and whose is diminished.
When President Donald Trump referred to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz using the R-word, defenders rushed in with a familiar refrain: freedom of speech. He can say what he wants. He is protected. End of discussion.
But this is not a freedom-of-speech question. It is a freedom-of-dignity question.
Donald Trump is not a private citizen muttering into the void. He is the most powerful person in the world, speaking through a global amplifier backed by the authority of the presidency. The real question is not whether he is allowed to use degrading language, but whether a president who does so honors the dignity of the office—or hollows it out from within.
A president’s words do more than reveal character; they instruct the nation in who it is permitted to become.
Some defenders argue that only the N-word merits being reduced to an initial, that if Trump wants to use “retarded,” he can—and so can anyone else. They dismiss criticism as cancel culture, another example of Democrats weaponizing political correctness.
This defense is morally hollow. Saying, “Only the N-word counts” is an impoverished standard. Harmful language does not become acceptable simply because it targets a different group. The R-word is not neutral—it has been used for decades to demean, exclude, and dehumanize people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, reducing human beings to a punchline or a flaw.
This is not about partisan loyalty or performative outrage. It is about whether we believe people deserve basic dignity regardless of disability. If you had a child, a sibling, or a close friend with an intellectual or developmental disability, would you really argue that the most powerful person in the country should be excused for using a word that has long diminished their worth? Would that feel like free speech, or like indifference?
Leadership is not only about what one is legally permitted to say. It is about what one chooses to say. Leaders set norms. When they adopt language that punches down, they grant permission for others to follow. Calling that out is not political correctness; it is a minimal ethical expectation of public leadership.
BJ Stasio, a Peer Specialist 2 with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, explains:
When national leaders use the R-word casually, it reactivates real harm for people who were once labeled, limited, and underestimated. As someone who has lived with that label—and now leads within the disability rights movement—I know firsthand what the stigma can do.
Nicole LeBlanc, a disability employment consultant and self-advocacy adviser, underscores the emotional and systemic toll:
Seeing the R-word insult return to everyday language is enraging. Many people with autism—especially those diagnosed in adulthood—carry complex trauma histories from bullying and verbal abuse. Research shows they are more likely to be bullied than the general population, leading to high rates of PTSD, anxiety, and other challenges. People with disabilities want respect, love, acceptance, and access to services that allow us to thrive, not just survive. Using hateful language fuels negative attitudes, health disparities, and higher abuse rates. Respect is not optional.
Emauni Crawley, a behavioral health coach and disability advocate, is blunt:
The manner in which Trump articulates the R-word is not a result of ignorance. It is an act of perverseness.
Dr. Gary Schaffer, professor of school psychology, mental health counselor, author, and a person with disabilities, adds historical context:
The R-word is not neutral. It is hate speech, reducing learning and behavioral differences to something laughable and diminishing a person’s value to society. When the president of the United States uses it openly, he gives a green light to discriminate, segregate, and withhold empathy—not only from people with intellectual disabilities, but from anyone with learning or behavioral differences.
This danger is not theoretical. Prior to 1975, many students with disabilities were denied access to education entirely because they were deemed incapable of learning. Language paved the way for policy. It always does.
Max Donatelli, a US Air Force Vietnam veteran, disability advocate, and parent, put it plainly:
The public disrespect shown by this president to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is unprecedented. Our country deserves better. As a parent and advocate, we have found it challenging to rid our language of the R-word at the local, state, and national levels. We helped New York State end its use of it in the office that administers services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. What was once the Office for Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities is now the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, thanks to significant advocacy. Our wonderful son Craig, who has Down syndrome, deserves the respect and opportunities afforded all citizens. The use of this slur is a stain on this presidency that won’t be forgotten by us.
The R-word entered medical and educational usage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a supposedly humane replacement for earlier slurs. By the 1960s and 1970s, it had become an everyday insult. Its harm was so widespread that it was removed from professional, legal, and clinical use, replaced by terms such as intellectual disability and developmental disability. Organizations like the Special Olympics have spent decades urging the public to abandon the word entirely.
Trump’s use of it is therefore not accidental, nostalgic, or brave. It is regressive. It communicates that labeling human beings this way is acceptable—even legitimate. Taboos are ethical boundaries. When a president violates them intentionally, the violation instructs.
Words alone are dangerous. When paired with policy, the harm compounds. Rhetoric that degrades, combined with policies that strip protections, sends a clear message about whose lives are valued and whose are negotiable. Programs like SOAR, which helped people with severe mental health challenges access Social Security benefits and provided housing, healthcare, and stability. Cutting them leaves people exposed. The erosion of special education, weakening of Americans with Disabilities Act guidance, and refusal to provide real-time American Sign Language interpretation at White House events send the same message: Accessibility is optional; inclusion is an inconvenience.
Harm becomes systemic not all at once, but sentence by sentence, joke by joke, policy memo by policy memo. The erosion of dignity rarely announces itself as violence. It begins as permission—to mock, dismiss, reduce. When that permission comes from the highest office in the land, it spreads.
This is not about fragility. It is about responsibility. A president’s words do more than reveal character; they instruct the nation in who it is permitted to become. When language degrades and protections are hollowed out, dignity ceases to be shared and becomes a privilege rationed by power.
The question is no longer whether such language is legal. It is whether we will accept a politics that treats some people’s humanity as expendable, and whether we will recognize, before it spreads further, that a nation willing to bargain away dignity at the margins will eventually find it gone at the center.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The Fight for Adult Autistic Self-Empowerment in a MAGA World
My situation is emblematic of a broader problem faced by Autistic people: There is so much public misunderstanding of our condition and, in spite of some progress, nowhere near enough ways for us to advocate for ourselves.
Oct 12, 2025
Recently there has been highly welcome indignation and pushback against the quackish treatments and attitude of stigmatization advocated by President Donald Trump against Autistic people during his infamous September 22 press conference. Some of the most forceful criticisms have been made by Autistic individuals and Autistic-led organizations. It has also been satisfying to see a major political figure like Illinois’s Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker offer enlightened rhetoric on the subject. In an executive order in May designed to protect Illinois’s Autistic persons’ privacy from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s proposal to create a nationwide registry of Autistic persons, Pritzker stressed that “autism is a neurological difference–not a disease or an epidemic.”
In recent years activists and writers like Eric Garcia Jr., Temple Grandin, and the late Steve Silberman have pushed back against the stigmas attached to Autism by Trump and RFK Jr.: that Autistic people represent a diseased, anti-social segment of the population that are in need of a “cure” for their condition. Silberman’s best selling 2015 book NeuroTribes was a particularly notable contribution to the public discourse, describing Autism not as a mental illness but a normal and healthy variation of human neurological development. Writers like Silberman have stressed that Autistic people have the potential to use their unique intellectual and emotional gifts to make valuable contributions to the broader society—if that society is willing and able to offer accommodations to allow Autistic people to thrive.
Unfortunately, while the relatively enlightened approach toward Autism outlined above has made some progress in positively impacting public understanding, that progress has also been relatively limited. That limitation is illustrated perfectly by the Trump administration’s focus on finding a “cure” and other aspects of its harmful, reactionary approach to Autism. The Trump administration’s approach to Autism is part and parcel of its punitive and uncaring approach to underprivileged Americans in general, as demonstrated by its draconian gutting of an already devastated American welfare state.
Adult Autistic Employment: A Personal Story
Some of the most serious problems in Autistic policy in the United States run much deeper than Trump’s cruelty and ignorance or the medical quackery promoted by RFK Jr. One of the most deep-seated problems relates to Autistic adults in the job market. The unemployment rate for Autistic adults in the United States is extremely high—85% according to one estimate.
I have direct experience with the subject of Autistic adult employment. As an adult in my early 30s—in 2012—I received my first official medical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder: I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. This diagnosis was supposed to help me receive disability accommodations in future employment after I received my master’s degree. After all, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, employers are supposed to provide “reasonable accommodations” to persons with documented disabilities in order to help them overcome barriers to performing a job.
Over the past 15 years, I have had about seven employers—all low wage jobs—and have mostly gone without disability accommodations—not because I don’t need them but because I’ve found it impossible in most cases to obtain them. In most of these jobs, it was a psychologically shattering strain for me to try to succeed at them and try to compensate for my learning disabilities and moderate verbal communication impairment.
As far as I can tell, one of the reasons for my difficulties in obtaining employment accommodations is that, looking at me on the surface, I appear “high functioning.” As a job counselor with my state government’s Department of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) said to me 15 years ago, “You have a master’s degree, you shouldn’t be working at McDonalds,” when I suggested the latter as a possible employment route. When I had my first meeting with a supervisor at a job with a medical company in 2021, she remarked—thinking she was giving me a compliment—that I “didn’t look” like I had Asperger’s Syndrome. According to her I appeared “well put together” and well spoken. However, before long, previously invisible manifestations of my disabilities became apparent to her; I quit the job after four months as the supervisor made clear she was preparing to write me up for ineptitude.
The Trump administration’s approach to Autism is part and parcel of its punitive and uncaring approach to underprivileged Americans in general, as demonstrated by its draconian gutting of an already devastated American welfare state.
Although at one point the supervisor suggested she would be willing to give me disability accommodations, the company’s corporate office refused, saying that I would have to go through the costly and lengthy process of getting a new diagnosis of Autism before they would consider granting accommodations. The corporate HR official said that my 2012 Aspergers diagnosis was obsolete because of new diagnostic criteria for Autism embodied in the 2013 publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
However, perhaps the most important reason for my frequent failure to secure disability accommodations is that, in many cases, the willingness of employers to provide accommodations often comes into conflict with the need to maximize worker productivity in the interests of profit. Even when accommodations are officially provided, they can easily become reduced to irrelevance as supervisors feel the pressure to maximize efficiency and productivity and lash out at employees. I myself have been bullied at a previous job for aspects of my personality related to my Autism—in spite of this job being one of the few instances where I was provided with formal disability accommodations—and have seen other Autistic coworkers similarly treated.
Meanwhile, I can report that I have been employed in a full time job for the last four years with the same company, currently making per hour approximately $3.49 more than my state’s minimum wage. I work with no disability accommodations at this job and have only told one coworker that I am Autistic. Within the last year, the company has assigned me a more public-facing role in tasks especially incompatible with my Autism-related disabilities. I’m highly tempted to ask HR for accommodations—to at least minimize my work in the public-facing role—but fear rejection and unduly antagonizing my supervisor who has long faced a staffing shortage in the public-facing role.
I think my situation is emblematic of a broader problem faced by Autistic people: There is so much public misunderstanding of our condition and, in spite of some progress, nowhere near enough ways for us to advocate for the manner in which society can respect our needs.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Experts ‘Shocked and Appalled’ Over Trump, RFK Jr. Claims on Autism, Tylenol
"Don’t pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine," said Britain's top health official.
Sep 23, 2025
Medical experts in the United States and abroad expressed shock Monday at US President Donald Trump's claim that acetaminophen, commonly known by the brand name Tylenol, is linked to autism spectrum disorders in developing fetuses when taken during pregnancy.
Trump made the claim during a press conference with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy where the president at one point made a broad statement about the prevalence of autism before checking to make sure it was correct.
"There are certain groups of people that don't take vaccines and don't take any pills, that have no autism," said the president before asking the health officials assembled at the event, "Is that a correct statement, by the way?"
Kennedy replied that "there are some studies that suggest" there are low autism rates in Amish communities, which tend to have low immunization rates—but do not uniformly shun vaccines or the use of over-the-counter medications.
The debunked myth that autism spectrum disorders do not exist in Amish communities was just one of Trump's claims aimed at linking the use of Tylenol to autism—an effort that left Helen Tager-Flusberg, a psychologist and the founder of the Coalition of Autism Scientists, "shocked and appalled."
"In some respects this was the most unhinged discussion of autism that I have ever listened to," Tager-Flusberg told The New York Times in a discussion with three other experts. "It was clear that none of the presenters knew much about autism—other than the mothers’ lived experience—and nothing about the existing science. This may be the most difficult day in my career."
"To hear from the most powerful office in the world that you should definitely not take paracetamol during pregnancy is alarming and will frighten women."
A central claim presented during the press conference was that the consumption of Tylenol during pregnancy is linked to autism in children—a potential connection that scientists have researched for years with inconclusive results.
Administration officials referred to a recent scientific review from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which did not conduct any new research on birth outcomes but compiled evidence from existing scientific studies of the use of Tylenol during pregnancy.
Andrea Baccarelli, the dean of the Harvard TH Chan School and a co-author of the review, said Monday after the press conference that—as doctors have already long warned—"caution" is warranted regarding the use of Tylenol in pregnancy, especially prolonged or heavy use, but that a causal link to autism has not been proven by the available research.
The president suggested the link has been proven, telling the public: "Don’t take Tylenol [during pregnancy]. Don’t take it. Fight like hell not to take it.”
"Don't take Tylenol!" -- Trump has said this about a dozen times during this press conference pic.twitter.com/eOcEsWXXnu
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2025
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists affirmed that "in two decades of research on the use of acetaminophen in pregnancy, not a single reputable study has successfully concluded that the use of acetaminophen in any trimester of pregnancy causes neurodevelopmental disorders in children." The group added that fever during pregnancy "can be harmful to pregnant people when left untreated." Acetaminophen is an often-used fever reducer.
Trump and Kennedy also repeated the long-debunked claim that vaccines are linked to autism and said they would commit millions of taxpayer dollars to researching environmental factors, including vaccines.
The experts who spoke to the Times took issue with a central viewpoint presented at the press conference: that the rise in diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders represents a "crisis."
"If anything, the fact we now have increased diagnoses is a reason to celebrate," said Eric Garcia, the Washington bureau chief for The Independent and the author of We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation. "For the longest time, we overlooked autistic people of color and girls. Having data is good. It allows us to ask: 'What do we do with these people? How can we serve them?' Instead, we’re seeing their existence as a crisis."
Epidemiologist Brian K. Lee added that "increased awareness and changing diagnostic criteria" is behind the rise in diagnoses, and Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, noted that Trump incorrectly claimed that "one in 31" children is now diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.
"That’s the prevalence for the full autism spectrum. The prevalence of profound autism is about one in 216," said Singer, who is also the mother of a child with autism.
In the United Kingdom, Health Secretary Wes Streeting was blunt in his assessment of Trump's comments on autism and acetaminophen, which is known in the UK as paracetamol.
"I’ve just got to be really clear about this: There is no evidence to link the use of paracetamol by pregnant women to autism in their children," said Streeting. "I would just say to people watching, don’t pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine. In fact, don’t take even take my word for it, as a politician—listen to British doctors, British scientists, the NHS."
Sorcha Eastwood, a member of Parliament from Northern Ireland, added that Trump's unfounded claim was "wrapped in blame towards women and shaming women."
"To hear from the most powerful office in the world that you should definitely not take paracetamol during pregnancy is alarming and will frighten women. To hear that if you take paracetamol during pregnancy that you will give your child autism is completely unfounded and untrue," said Eastwood.
Earlier this year, Kennedy angered disability rights advocates with a proposal, described by National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya, to create a national registry for people with autism. The Health and Human Services Department later walked back Bhattacharya's comments.
But "the language and attitude displayed by Trump and RFK," said Eastwood, displayed "their blatant prejudice towards autism."
Keep ReadingShow Less
It Cannot Be Denied: Israel Is Starving Children to Death on Purpose
Starvation of civilians is not an accident of war, it is a deliberate policy.
Aug 22, 2025
In July, major news organizations published the image of 18-month-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a Palestinian child so emaciated that his bones protruded through his back, while his mom cradled him in her arms. Instead of a diaper, he wore a black plastic bag.
Some online commentators have sought to downplay the image’s power by pointing to a preexisting medical condition. But Muhammad is starving as the result of Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. This is a war crime that is affecting the entire population and, based on my research, is inflicting particularly profound suffering on children with disabilities like Muhammad.
Humanitarian workers told me that restrictions on aid prevent them from bringing in special food that some children with disabilities or medical conditions need, while medical workers warned that children with disabilities are less likely to get care due to the Israeli government’s systematic assault on Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure.
In mid-August, in Geneva, I joined the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for its session focused on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, governments are required to protect people with disabilities in situations of risks, including armed conflicts. The message from disability groups was clear: Governments need to press Israeli authorities to allow unimpeded, disability-inclusive humanitarian access and not leave children like Muhammad to suffer the consequences of intentional starvation.
Muhammad’s image should move world leaders to use all their leverage with Israel, including an arms embargo and targeted sanctions, to stop Israeli authorities’ mass starvation policy.
There are countless examples of Palestinian children with disabilities thriving with adequate nutrition and healthcare. In just one example, 6-year-old Fadi al-Zant, who has cystic fibrosis and was severely malnourished, was evacuated to the United States from Gaza last year and survived. Osman Shahin, a 16-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who had lost 7 kilograms, regained weight after his family left Gaza for Bosnia.
But Muhammed and other children in Gaza do not have that chance. Between April and mid-July alone, more than 20,000 children in Gaza were hospitalized for acute malnourishment, 3,000 of them severely. Starvation of civilians is not an accident of war, it is a deliberate policy.
Muhammad’s image should move world leaders to use all their leverage with Israel, including an arms embargo and targeted sanctions, to stop Israeli authorities’ mass starvation policy. Muhammad’s disability does not make his starvation less cruel or unlawful; it makes it all the more urgent for countries to act now.
Keep ReadingShow Less
People With Disabilities Face Unmatched Cruelty From GOP Medicaid Cuts
Trump’s administration is here to serve the wealthy-elite, not the regular working-class Americans and people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid.
Aug 10, 2025
Two months ago, Sloan Meek – a disability rights advocate with cerebral palsy – took the stage at a rally protesting the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” Meek warned how $1 trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts would have life-threatening consequences for people with disabilities.
“My whole life – not just my healthcare – is supported by Medicaid. The way I move around in the world. The way I communicate. The people who help me do all the things I want to do in my life,” Meek said. “Without Medicaid support, I will be forced into a nursing home to spend the rest of my life in a hospital bed.”
The Republican budget is a “death threat” to people with disabilities, Meek said.
It draws a clear line between those in this country who are deserving of protection and public investment, and those who are not. While corporations and the ultra wealthy are afforded millions in tax breaks disabled people and caregivers are neglected, defunded, and treated as disposable.
The North Street Neighborhood
In a joint interview, Meek, his at-home caregiver Wendy Lincicome, and his bandmate, friend, and fellow disability-rights activist Suvya Carroll spoke with both anger and fear about how Medicaid cuts will uproot them from their community in Durham, North Carolina.
The three live in the North Street Neighborhood, a community that describes itself as “an organic network of relationships.” North Street is actively reimagining what it means to build a neighborhood rooted in disability justice and collective care. Home to over 100 residents — including roughly 30 people with disabilities — it brings renters, homeowners, university students, and families into a space designed to foster inclusion, accessibility, and interdependence between disabled and non-disabled residents.
For Meek and Carroll, who also has cerebral palsy, North Street is a home where they can show up as active community members. They serve on the neighborhood residents’ council, deliver newspapers, and perform concerts with their band, Meek Squad. Meek also proudly proclaims himself host of North Street’s infamous party house.
For Carroll, North Street is a place she can show up as her authentic self and trust her neighbors to support her with her disabilities. Both she and Lincicome talk about how the community creates long-lasting relationships between residents, allowing able-bodied residents to knowledgeably and empathetically show up and serve their neighbors with disabilities.
“They’re our friends, they’re our neighbors,” Lincicome says. Thanks to Medicaid funding, those same neighbors can also be trained and paid caregivers, supporting Meek and Lincicome with tasks like lifting him into his wheelchair-accessible van, assisting with medications, and helping him communicate. These responsibilities require specialized skills, and receiving expert care from people who truly know and care for them, just next door, is a rare experience.
Lincicome describes North Street’s ecosystem of care as a rare oasis in a world that often isolates and erases people with disabilities and their caregivers. Instead, their community members understand what life is like for an at-home caregiver and a person with a significant disability. That understanding, explains Linciome, ensures that, “our world doesn’t close into the size of the four walls of our home. Our world is much bigger.”
However, for residents like Meek, Carroll, and Lincicome, living in North Street would not be possible without Medicaid funding.
Medicaid as a lifeline
Medicaid pays for Meek’s home and community supports, including Lincicome, who’s been a caretaker in his life for 31 years. They first met when Meek was just six years old and Lincicome was in college. Lincicome assisted Meek and his family until, as an adult, Meek moved in with her as his full-time at-home caregiver.
The rest of Meek’s medical services are sustained by a patchwork of health insurance. Contributions from Social Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and Medicare are still not enough to cover all of Meek’s medical costs. Meek’s wheelchair, equipped with a computer communication device, his prescriptions, multiple specialists, and full-time caregiving needs are expensive. While Medicaid has been vital, it’s never been enough by itself and is difficult to access.
Lincicome says they’re lucky. Meek’s family has the financial resources to help fill in the gaps, something many people with disabilities don’t have.
Carroll, who was arrested for protesting Trump’s budget bill in June, also relies on Medicaid. She shares that without the same financial resources, she’s often been left to navigate inaccessible and complex healthcare systems alone. For example, three years after receiving a power assist for her manual wheelchair, she was suddenly billed $6,000 because her Medicaid “wasn’t properly authorized.” After days of phone calls with uncooperative insurance reps, the charge was finally dropped and the device covered. Jumping through constant hoops to receive adequate health insurance for her disability is exhausting for Carroll, and requires additional advocates in her life to help navigate not only daily tasks, but hostile healthcare structures.
Medicaid needed improvements, not cuts, says Lincicome. “We’re not rolling around in benefits. It doesn’t cover everything. It’s really hard to navigate and to access. There are so many rules that seem to contradict each other and have kinds of discrimination built into it.”
Carroll recently found a caregiver covered by Medicaid. Her caregiver assists with tasks like cooking, cleaning, managing medications, and most importantly, advocating alongside her at medical appointments. Previously, Carroll leaned on friends at North Street for support, but ultimately needed the consistent, specialized care that long-term at-home caretakers provide to people with disabilities.
Although Medicaid – like any health insurance in this country – is confusing and hard to access, it’s the only healthcare Carroll has to support vital medical services.
Medicaid cuts threaten HCBS programs
Carroll and Meek are not alone. More than 1 in 5 Medicaid enrollees have a disability. And nearly half of Medicaid enrollees with a disability have difficulties living independently and require long-term at-home care. Today there’s roughly 6 million people who use Medicaid for long-term direct care support and more than 700,000 people currently on a Medicaid waiver waiting list to receive home and community based services (HCBS).
At-home caregivers are paid through Medicaid’s HCBS waiver program. Medicaid is the primary payer for caregivers like Lincicome because other forms of health insurance typically do not cover long-term at-home care costs. But chronic underinvestment in federal Medicaid funding has contributed to low wages for caregivers and a disproportionate number of care workers also relying on Medicaid for their own healthcare. Wages for home caregivers puts them in the bottom 10 percent of lowest paid workers in the US economy.
Lincicome explains that she’s severely underpaid for the work she does. Through the HCBS waiver program, she’s paid an hourly rate based on an eight-hour workday, an assumption that doesn’t reflect the reality of her role. As an at-home caregiver, she often works up to 20 hours a day, effectively earning less than $10 an hour for around-the-clock labor.
Low wages and strenuous labor leads to high turnover rates in the industry, which in turn causes dangerous working conditions and a shortage of direct care workers available to provide life-giving support to people with disabilities.
This crisis is especially acute as the demand for caregivers in the US is increasing. By 2040, more than one in five people in the United States will likely need the aging and disability support direct care workers provide.
Beyond standard medical care, Lincicome’s role as a caregiver gives Meek agency and voice. Meek is an active organizer in his community. With Carroll, he speaks with medical students and doctors about the importance of friendship, social connection, and truly listening to patients with disabilities. He’s worked with the city government. He teaches his friends how to be advocates for themselves and others. And he always makes sure he gets his friends out to the voting polls during elections. “To do all this important work,” Meek says, “I need assistance.”
Without Lincicome, Carroll says, the life she and Meek have built at North Street would not be possible. Lincicome isn’t just a caregiver. In her emails, she signs off as their “logistics manager” and “social secretary,” titles that reflect the many roles she plays. She’s crucial in making it possible for Meek and Carroll to safely travel to Washington, D.C. to protest Medicaid cuts, speak at universities about disability rights, and perform live with their band, Meek Squad.
But fair compensation for caregivers, as well as dignified and quality care for people with disabilities, is hard to find, says Lincicome. And it is only going to become more challenging and complicated to access with Medicaid cuts.
HCBS programs are considered “optional” Medicaid services and will likely be some of the first programs on the chopping block under Republican-led budget cuts. This will lead to the elimination of many at-home caregiver positions and decrease already under-funded wages for caregivers.
But these Medicaid services aren’t “optional”. Lincicome and Meek are a clear example of how Lincicome’s work is absolutely vital is Meek’s ability to live a full and meaningful life. Cutting Medicaid funding takes away the ability of millions of people with disabilities to live in their home and community.
Gutting ACA expansion and strict job requirements targets people with disabilities
In addition to stripping away HCBS programs, the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” also attacks Medicaid expansion and imposes strict job requirements that endanger millions of disabled folks.
In North Carolina, where Meek, Carroll, and Lincicome live, 660,000 people became eligible for Medicaid through the recent 2023 expansion. The expansion has been monumental for low-income people and individuals with disabilities.
In the U.S., qualifying for disability-based Medicaid and other governmental support is extremely difficult. Nearly two-thirds of non-elderly adults with disabilities on Medicaid don’t receive SSI, meaning they qualify instead through low income. Thanks to Medicaid expansion, millions more disabled people have access to healthcare because ACA expansion lowers the income threshold eligible for Medicaid. As experts note, expansion has been critical in giving people with disabilities access to care without having to meet strict federal disability criteria.
Trump’s budget bill takes away $526 billion from states who have adopted ACA expansion. North Carolina has trigger laws in place that stipulate if enough federal funds are stripped away from the expansion program, it will shut down all together. This would leave hundreds of thousands of people without healthcare coverage in North Carolina.
In addition to gutting Medicaid ACA expansion, the budget bill requires Medicaid expansion enrollees to meet harsh work requirements or prove they meet eligibility criteria. This is particularly dangerous for people with disabilities.
In the Republican budget bill, Medicaid enrollees will be required to redetermine eligibility twice a year instead of annually starting in December 2026. Studies show that people with disabilities, who already require caregiving support to cook and clean, are particularly vulnerable to these work requirements.
We’ve already seen how job requirements will strip people of essential healthcare. For example, in 2018, Arkansas implemented similar Medicaid work requirements, which caused 18,000 people to lose their health coverage. Yet 95 percent of those who were required to redetermine their eligibility through work requirements appeared to have met and qualified for Medicaid. Put simply, even though people qualified for Medicaid, work requirements created walls of red tape “churning” people off their health insurance.
Rather than protect against “waste, fraud, and abuse,” this budget bill merely exacerbates obstacles, seas of red tape, and unintelligible Frankenstein healthcare policies.
“We want our lawmakers to make the right and moral choices with their vote,” Meek says, and “not take away the support people depend on, our voices, or our lives.”
Lawmakers are “taking away from low income families and people with disabilities for what?” asks Carroll.
The answer: Trump’s administration is here to serve the wealthy-elite, not the regular working-class Americans and people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid.
These Medicaid cuts should not be ignored because it’s going to hurt people like Meek, Carroll, and Lincicome. It’s time to get loud and get to work, says Carroll.
Keep ReadingShow Less
This Disability Pride Month Is About Survival, Not Celebration
This month, skip the slogans. Ask: Who do I know that needs care? Who will I support when the next cut comes? What am I building that lasts beyond this news cycle? Or this election cycle?
Jul 26, 2025
Every July, we’re told to smile for the cameras. Show our pride. Celebrate how far we’ve come.
But what if all we feel is rage?
This year, Disability Pride Month arrives under a government that is actively tearing down the few protections we have left. Programs that kept us out of institutions—gone. Jobs focused on accessibility—eliminated. Community care infrastructure—defunded, dismantled, or disappeared entirely. And somehow, no one’s sounding the alarm. Or perhaps there are too many alarms going off at once, and nobody can distinguish them anymore.
There’s no parade for the disabled workers quietly laid off when Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) offices were shuttered. No ribbon cutting for the collapse of the Administration for Community Living. No national reckoning when misinformation about disability spreads on federal letterhead and leads to real-world harm. Harm like the little people I know who were harassed in airports after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) became a political target following the D.C plane crash when our president attributed the disaster to our community.
What we’re seeing now is the result of years of bipartisan disinvestment. It’s just happening louder, faster, and crueler than before.
This isn’t bureaucratic drift. It’s intentional. And it’s happening while the rest of the country posts inspirational quotes about inclusion.
I run New Disabled South with the mission of improving the lives of disabled people and building strong disability justice and rights movements in the South, and I can tell you: This moment is not about pride. It’s about survival.
The Trump administration recently directly attacked a federal employment program that helped place disabled people in jobs across agencies like the FAA. Instead of telling the truth, they called it a “diversity hiring” loophole and singled out specific disabilities, including dwarfism. The backlash from right-wing radical folks was immediate and violent. And still, no one covered it.
And yet, the rollback didn’t start this year. It didn’t even start with this administration. President Ronald Reagan, with a Republican Senate from 1981-1987, launched a major campaign to reduce the size of the federal government. Significant cuts to Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) led to hundreds of thousands of people losing disability benefits after aggressive reevaluations.
And now, anti-DEI rhetoric has escalated into anti-access policy. Entire programs and research centers have been shuttered under the guise of neutrality. Leaders who run centers for racial and disability justice are currently fighting lawsuits claiming that simply existing in these spaces is discriminatory. The irony would be laughable if it weren’t so destructive.
The people affected by these attacks are the ones making our country more livable, accessible, and just. These aren’t abstract programs. These are lifelines. I know, because I grew up on them.
My parents relied on Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) to care for my siblings and me at home. We were triplets, all with cerebral palsy. Doctors encouraged my parents to put us into institutions. But because of HCBS and other programs, we weren’t institutionalized—we were raised in our own home, in our own community, with the people we love. I’m here because of that care. And I’m terrified that families like mine won’t get the same chance.
This is the part where I’m supposed to offer hope. But here’s the truth: We are being failed. And it’s time to name that, without softening it.
Disability justice is not a one-month-a-year conversation. It is not a post. It is not a panel. And it cannot be siloed off from broader fights for racial, gender, and economic equity. Being a part of this community, we are not a niche. We are a movement. This affects us all; more than 1 in 4 adults in the United States have some type of disability, and that’s not counting the number of people who have been and continue to be disabled from Covid-19. And we are all deeply, inextricably linked to every community being attacked right now.
When Black students lose access to equity programs, disabled students lose.
When LGBTQ+ protections are stripped away, disabled people lose.
When DEI offices are dissolved, accessibility gets erased too.
And when we talk about disability, we must also talk about race, poverty, gender, sexuality, and geography. Especially in the South, where I live and organize, policy decisions made in D.C. don’t just ripple—they rupture. The South has the nation’s highest rates of disability, and it’s been made clear with recent cuts to Medicaid and other essential programs that the federal government isn’t coming to save us. No matter who’s in charge, disability is too often treated as an afterthought at best or a political liability at worst. What we’re seeing now is the result of years of bipartisan disinvestment. It’s just happening louder, faster, and crueler than before.
We need care webs—mutual aid rooted in relationships, not rescue. These are informal, hyper-local networks where people look out for one another. Not just with money or donations, but with time, attention, and consistency. Someone to check in. Someone to help navigate a job search or bureaucratic nightmare. Someone to drive you to the doctor when paratransit doesn’t show up. Someone who knows your access needs and shows up anyway.
This isn’t about creating a perfect system. It’s about refusing to let each other fall through the cracks.
Building a care web can be as simple as texting a neighbor, posting in a local group, or organizing around one person’s immediate needs. You don’t have to be disabled to start one. You just have to decide that no one should be left behind because a government decided they didn’t matter.
These may seem like small acts, but they are how we survive. They are how we resist.
So this month, skip the slogans. Ask: Who do I know that needs care? Who will I support when the next cut comes? What am I building that lasts beyond this news cycle? Or this election cycle?
That’s the work. That’s the rage. And that’s how we move forward together.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Medicaid Defenders in Wheelchairs Arrested Ahead of Senate Vote on 'Betrayal of a Bill'
"If you're zip-tying grandmas protesting losing healthcare maybe you're not the good guys in the story?" quipped one critic.
Jun 25, 2025
Dozens of peaceful protesters including people in wheelchairs were arrested inside a U.S. Senate building in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday while protesting Republicans' proposed cuts to Medicaid spending in the budget reconciliation package facing votes on Capitol Hill in the coming days.
The group Popular Democracy in Action said that "today, over 60 people were arrested in the Russell Senate Building Rotunda in a powerful act of nonviolent civil disobedience" against "cuts to essential social programs like Medicaid" and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Protesters were zip-tied and dragged from the building by police after demonstrators unfurled three large banners inside the rotunda with messages calling on lawmakers to protect Medicaid and other essential social programs. One of the banners read, "Senate Republicans Don't Kill Us, Save Medicaid."
If you’re zip-tying grandmas protesting losing health care maybe you’re not the good guys in the story?
[image or embed]
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 2:51 PM
The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act being pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump would slash federal Medicaid spending by billions of dollars, introduce work requirements for recipients, and impose other conditions that critics say would result in millions of vulnerable people losing their coverage in order to pay for a massive tax cut that would disproportionately benefit wealthy households and corporations.
"Nearly 80% of Americans support preserving and expanding Medicaid, yet this bill would do the opposite—slashing $880 billion from care to fund $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for billionaires," Popular Democracy in Action said in a statement. "Over 16 million people could lose coverage over the next decade if the proposed spending bill passes, and new work requirements threaten to strip lifesaving care from those who need it most."
Popular Democracy in Action said Wednesday's press conference, which preceded the civil disobedience, "underscored the urgent need for Congress to divest from endless wars abroad and invest in our communities at home. Participants have one clear message for Senators currently debating the bill: 'We need to kill this bill, before it kills us all.'"
"Nearly 80% of Americans support preserving and expanding Medicaid, yet this bill would do the opposite."
In addition to Popular Democracy in Action, groups including the Service Employees International Union, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), Debt Collective, Stand Up Alaska, Action NC, Arkansas Community Organizations, and American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) took part in Wednesday's protest, which followed similar past actions in defense of Medicaid.
"Yesterday was the three-year anniversary of the deadly, disastrous Dobbs decision that has literally put our lives on the line," PPFA president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said at the protest. "In this big, bad betrayal of a bill there is a provision to defund Planned Parenthood."
"Half of our patients rely on Medicaid to get access to care. What they would do, is put at risk a third of all of our health centers, and there's nowhere for our patients to go to be absorbed into the system," she continued. "That puts at risk access to contraception, breast exams, cancer exams, wellness exams, access to STI testing and treatment—just to give billionaires a tax break."
"And here's a kicker, for the 1 million patients who rely on that care, 90% of those health centers are in states with abortion access," McGill Johnson added. "So we need to call this what it is: a backdoor abortion ban."
Earlier in the day members of these groups were joined at a press conference by U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who condemned the GOP bill.
"I'm the point person for the Democrats in this fight—and it's the most important fight I've ever been in, because this battle this week is going to determine the future of American healthcare," said Wyden. "Are you for caviar or kids? Mar-a-Lago or the middle class? Hedge funds or healthcare? I know what side you're on—now we have got to make sure that a whole lot of Senate Republicans make the right choice too."
While it is uncertain how many—if any—upper chamber Republicans will oppose the bill, more than a dozen House GOP lawmakers claimed Tuesday that they would not back the Senate's version of the legislation due to Medicaid cuts.
Both chambers of Congress are scheduled to recess for the July 4th holiday next week. Trump is pushing lawmakers to vote on the package before the break. Under reconciliation rules, both chambers must pass identical versions of the legislation.
Most proponents of the bill are determined to pass it with the Medicaid cuts. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that "failure is not an option."
"I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid," McConnell noted. "But they'll get over it."
#WeWontGetOverLosingMedicaidRepublicans don’t GAF about us…📌 Today, Capitol Police are threatening to arrest people in wheelchairs.📌 Yesterday, McConnell said “failure is not an option” and this…
[image or embed]
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) June 25, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Participants in Wednesday's protest vowed to keep battling to preserve Medicaid.
"The stuff we're fighting for, the kind of healthcare, long-term services, housing, well-paid work with paid days off and benefits—those are the things we've fought for for 50 years," said Mike Oxford of ADAPT. "We've been fighting for years... we're not backing down."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy