Shock: Infant Euthanasia Has Been Legal Here for Two Years

I’m shocked. I live in the Netherlands, I am pro-life, and yet I was not aware of this until now: infant euthanasia was legalized here in 2006! It doesn’t make a real difference in a sense, in that the so-called Groningen protocol – by which children under age twelve years with severe disabilities can be [...]

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Disability Is Different, Right? Ableism vs. Other Forms of Discrimination

Last week, I heard that an agency that provides supported living services to people with mental health problems including autism in my area, turned me down because of my blindness. They turned me down without ever having seen me or spoken with me, and presumably without knowing anything about blindness, its implications or the services [...]

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Sense and Nonsense of Treatment and Educational Plans

Recently, there’s a lot of discussion about Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs) on one of the mailing lists I belong to. This discussion used to make me jealous, because, in the Netherlands, educational programming for students with disabilities may formally be based on a plan, but the plan is rarely followed and often, the student or [...]

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Cynical List of Things I Learned in a Year in the Psychiatric Hospital

Today is my hospitalization anniversary. Oh well, it could be yesterday, since I had my crisis on November 2, but hours on the police station waiting for the community physician and then the psychiatric crisis service people to see me and then more hours waiting for transportation, delayed my hospitalization to around 2:30 AM November [...]

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