Abolish Guardianship, Preserve the Rights of Disabled People, and Free Britney
They say one can judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable. That’s bad news for America. It has become increasingly and disconcertingly clear lately that American society as a whole treats its elderly as disposable objects, that is if it notices them at all. On Monday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave a half-hearted non-apology for his administration’s appalling handling of the COVID crisis, specifically in regards to the elderly. For readers who may be unaware of what is unfolding to be the biggest political scandal in New York’s recent history, the short version is that Cuomo apparently decided to force the elderly to stay in nursing homes where the conditions made them incredibly susceptible to COVID. As one with even a vague understanding of how viruses work would have guessed, a lot of New York’s elderly got sick and died likely as a direct result of that policy. According to some, the Cuomo administration then withheld (some might say lied about) the true terrifying death toll from the public. As my own mother passed away from COVID in a nursing home I, perhaps more than most, would like to see accountability for the many victims and their families for any negligent leadership that occurred. It would be easy to think of the New York nursing home scandal as merely another example of a politician lying to cover his own hide. Unfortunately, it speaks to a larger trend of people in positions of power treating the elderly as expendable. The scourge of conservatorship abuse has been in the news lately thanks to the ongoing struggles of Britney Spears. While the popstar is in her late 30s, the story certainly draws attention to how this legal maneuver impacts… Read More
