Disability rights

On Wednesday 11 May thousands of disabled people and their supporters marched to parliament on the 'Hardest Hit' demonstration. They demanded an end to cuts that are placing the burden of the financial crisis on society's most vulnerable. I'm not good at judging large demonstrations, but there were easily 2000 people present and likely more. That large numbers were mobilised shows the sense of moral outrage many feel towards a cabinet that expects the disabled to manage on significantly reduced benefits and with much less support whilst searching for jobs that exist only in ministers' wildest...

I’m a social worker currently working in a learning disability service. On reading about the recent case of Alan, a man with an IQ of 48 banned from having sex, I reflected on how people with learning disabilities in our society are either over-protected and infantilised or ignored and left to fend for themselves. State restrictions on people with learning disabilities (defined as having an IQ under 70) and other vulnerable adults are sometimes necessary but problematic — forced sterilisation of women, etc. With an IQ of 48 Alan would be defined as having a moderate Learning Disability (LD)...

We reject these cuts as simply malicious ideological vandalism, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. Join us in the fight It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government's budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services. The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers'...

Yesterday's Guardian led with the headline, New research brings autism screening closer to reality: Call for ethics debate as tests in womb could allow termination of pregnancies . On Stroppyblog, a mother of a child with Asperger syndrome discusses the issues. Click here .

On Sunday 5 October, my son Joe and his dad went to the “Autism and Music” concert at the Savoy Theatre in London. It was promoted by the Autism Research Centre, which is based at Cambridge University and headed up by Professor Simon Baron Cohen. Most people hear about the difficulties associated with autism and Asperger Syndrome, including social and communication problems, and obsessions. But the obsessions can also give rise to particular talents, which apparently cluster around music, art and maths. So the idea of the concert — and of an arts exhibition at the ICA later that week — was to...