Reaction to "Where's Molly?"

Blogger Kay Olson, who describes herself as a “thirtysomething disabled feminist,” reacts to “Where’s Molly?” in a guest essay on the CNN site. She says the widespread acceptance of institutionalization in years past is a tragedy that continues to stigmatize people with developmental disabilities today.

” … we’re still living with the legacy of those folks being segregated, made invisible, and devalued. It has impacted how we view developmental disability and the way we think of difference - we have all been taught implicitly by this history that people who are intellectually or developmentally different do not belong among us because they’re dangerous, completely incompetent and lack any ability to contribute to society. And those beliefs are not true.”

The tragedy is exacerbated, she says, by the fact that abortion was legalized before people with disabilities were able to be fully integrated into the community. As a result, she says,

“… fear and stigma are a bigger part of [reproductive] choice than they might otherwise be if acceptance and providing community resources and integration were a bigger part of our social history instead.”