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.”

Molly and Jeff Daly

From a new documentary featured on CNN:

In 1957, when Jeff Daly was 6 years old, his 2-year-old sister suddenly disappeared from his family.

For nearly 50 years, Jeff and his family lived their lives as if his sister had never existed.

One day, after both his parents had died, Jeff found the answer to the question he wasn't supposed to ask

Following records his father had kept, Jeff Daly learned that his parents had sent Molly to a state institution for the "feeble-minded" in Oregon shortly before her third birthday. He searched for her, built a new life that includes her, and then lobbied for a change in Oregon law that now makes it easier for families to locate people who had been institutionalized.

Now Daly has made a documentary film that explores his family's journey. "Where's Molly?" opens a window on the practice that led to the institutionalization of an estimated half a million children with disabilities in the '50s alone. More on the film can be found here and here.

CNN explores the history and significance of institutionalization in the 1950s and 60s, and traces the legacy of stigma and shame that is still felt today.