JUST ANOTHER ANGSTY BLOGGER WITH WEAPONS FOR BOOBS

Disabled people are capable and a lot of society doesn’t see it that way. Regardless of what you believe or don’t believe about disabled people your comparison of disabled people to fetuses contributes to this myth that disabled people aren’t capable and should be coddled and smothered at every turn.  

This is coming from a very personal place because I’ve had to watch what my mom goes through. My mom has MS. It has progressed to the point where she can not talk or breathe on her own. Had my mom’s MS occurred earlier in her life, she wouldn’t have the amazing research career she had/has. How can I be certain of this? Because as soon as my mom started using a cane people started treating her like a child. When she started using a wheelchair she lost the ability to take public transit or get into her lab. My mom was and still is capable of being the amazing researcher she was 12 years ago, but because public transit isn’t wheelchair accessible, because her lab isn’t wheelchair accessible, because people always pity her like she should feel bad for herself, my mom is limited in her abilities.

She’s not disabled, society has disabled her.

For you to go comparing the treatment my mom faces from store clerks who ignore her and people who point at her and whisper, to that of a fetus, is insensitive and contributes to this idea that women like my mom, who once had the ability to work and walk, have less of the abilities of someone who is able bodied. 

My mom spent 10 months in the hospital last year. There were at least two nurses who told her research was used in their masters thesis. My mom told me during this time, she wished she was brain dead so there would be a reason to take her off life support because all she wanted was to be “normal” again.

MS took everything from my mom. It took her career. It took her ability to walk. It took her voice. Her lungs. Her arms. Her sight. Her ability to eat food orally. In the eyes of many it took her humanity.

It took her status in society as an able bodied woman. It took her status in the eyes of society as a capable woman. Your comparison of people who have disabilities like my mom, to a fetus isn’t helping her get it back.

Next time you want to compare abortion to the things people with a disability have to face on a daily basis, don’t. Don’t. Because until you have seen someone you love begin to believe they aren’t the capable person they once were, until you’ve been told by someone you love that they want to die because society has made it impossible for them to live, until you sit in the back seat of a social workers van as you drive away from your loving home because child services has decided your mom and dads disability keeps them from loving you, then you don’t know what society does to disabled people and you have absolutely no idea what they go through…And I can tell you, it is nothing like that of what fetus goes through.

Thank you. Have nice day.