All posts by Cal Montgomery

No Modern Asylums

Developmental Disability Community Faces a Housing Crisis

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On Tuesday, Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Bérubé published an op-ed in USA Today, titled “Don’t Let My Son Plunge Off the ‘Disability Cliff’ When I’m Gone.” In it, Bérubé, the father of a young man with an intellectual disability, describes the devastating loss of services youths with disabilities face when they leave their K-12 years. He describes his family’s efforts to find an adult life that works for his son Jamie. Bérubé also describes his family’s concerns about Jamie’s future once heand his wife are gone. The family has planned a life for Jamie that includes some days in a sheltered workshop at subminimum wage, plusmore integrated activities on others. Clearly, they have invested a great deal of effort into finding ways to give him a life he enjoys and intend to continue doing so. Someday, however, Jamie will leave home, and when he does, his … Continue Reading ››
Human Rights

ADAPT Protests at White House to Stop the Shocks

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Today, I am with a group of ADAPT protesters calling for the Trump Administration to release regulations prepared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and halt the use of contingent electric shock, a physically painful and mentally and physically harmful as a means of controlling disabled people. The shock, currently used only at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Massachusetts, should be recognized as the state-sponsored torture it is.  The practice should be opposed by human rights groups.  It should be stopped immediately.  Moreover, the facility should be closed and an investigation into it should be opened. The United Nation Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the United States signed in 1994, defines “torture” as:
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third … Continue Reading ››
Opinion

ADAPT Action is Not the Entirety of Disability Rights

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The Medicaid battle has come and gone again. Senators Graham and Cassidy came up with another plan to attack the Affordable Care Act.  Due to the arcane rules of the Senate, they had until the end of September to pass their amendment with only 51 votes (including a tie-breaker from the Vice President);  otherwise, they’ll need 60 again. Again, while this was an attack on millions of Americans, disabled and non-, the disability community in particular needed to come together to resist, because if this bill had succeeded, some disabled people who depend on Medicaid would have lost their freedom and others would have lost their lives.  The direct action group ADAPT,  which arises from the independent living movement, the most visible strand of the disability rights movement, was among the most visible to respond and played a key role in the failure of the Graham-Cassidy amendment. This is … Continue Reading ››