Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post. I attempt to provide extra warnings for certain material present in articles, but your triggers/issues may vary.

Outside the Dawn is Breaking: Her Uterus Is Really Not Your Business

For every caring, empathetic healthcare worker that praises her courage, she receives thoughtless treatment from others that make assumptions about the child’s quality of life and about the alleged “irresponsibility” of parents who choose to have disabled children.

Why should all feminists care about this?

Pulmonary Hypertension Association UK: Up To £1000 Return…….Just To Breathe!

PHA-UK research conducted by the charity’s members with 71 airlines who operate from and to the UK [found]:

* Less than a quarter of airlines surveyed supply free supplementary oxygen.
* A quarter of airlines approached do not supply supplementary oxygen at all.
* Two thirds of airlines in the study would not allow disabled air travellers with lung conditions to bring their own oxygen for use in- flight.
* Of the airlines that provide supplemental oxygen to otherwise ‘fit to fly’ passengers and charge for it, each levies a different fee which can range from £50 to £500 per trip, just to breathe!

Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA): Submission to the Queensland Review of Maternity Services

The study found that:

* 36% of the disabled women received negative reactions to their pregnancy from others, compared to 9% of the non-disabled women;
* 12% of the disabled women rated their doctors care during the pregnancy as ‘poor’, compared to 2% of the non-disabled women;
* 20% of the disabled women were advised by their doctor to have an abortion, compared to 0% of the non-disabled women;
* 23% of the disabled women found prenatal classes ‘unhelpful’ compared to 3% of the non-disabled women (reasons given by the disabled women as to why the classes were unhelpful included: lack of information; no consideration given to the needs of the women with disabilities; feeling excluded in the classes);
* 24% of the disabled women found the maternity hospital staff ‘unhelpful’ compared to 7% of the non-disabled women ( reasons given by the disabled women included: special needs of women with disabilities were ignored; patronising and bullying behaviour; rude and uncaring attitudes).

Cape Cod Times/AP: Study: Youth now have more mental health issues

A new study has found that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.[…]

The study is not without its skeptics, among them Richard Shadick, a psychologist who directs the counseling center at Pace University in New York. He says, for instance, that the sample data weren’t necessarily representative of all college students. (Many who answered the MMPI questionnaire were students in introductory psychology courses at four-year institutions.)

Shadick says his own experience leaves little doubt more students are seeking mental health services. But he and others think that may be due in part to heightened awareness of such services.

Canadian Press/Google: Disabled worshippers struggle to find place at pews as accessibility eludes

The disabled faithful say such experiences remain common in houses of worship, stoked by ignorance of their needs and doctrines that paint disability as proof of sin.

Years after U.S. federal law required accommodations for the disabled, separation of church and state means houses of worship remain largely beyond the law’s reach. State laws and denominational measures meant to take up the slack are tricky to enforce and face resistance from churches who call them both costly and impractical.[…]

Even after decades of blindness, Augusta churchgoer Willie Lee Jones said he still fields comments suggesting his sight could come back if he believed harder.

“People of faith will come to me and say, ‘God wants to heal you,”‘ said Jones, who replies that he’s complete even without his sight.