These Doctors Admit They Don’t Want Patients With Disabilities to Vote
It was an issue that dominated the final weekend of the primaries. As Dr. Lisa Bardack, a professor of surgery at Yale University, stood before the Republican Voters Panel in Boston, she said in a clear and confident voice she was ‘not going to let anyone or any group dictate my patients’ care.
Dr. Lisa Bardack is one of the Republican candidates for Congress from Massachusetts who have said that disability rights are “not important enough” to be considered part of the electoral debate.
“I have a few people who I think would be very interested in becoming my patients. They just happen to be people with disabilities, but they do not represent the majority of my patient population.”
A group of disabled people have taken exception to what they see as a double standard in this statement.
The statement in question came from Dr. Bardack. The person she was speaking to were a disability rights activist from Massachusetts’ largest community-based disability rights organization, the Disability Advocates of Greater Boston.
Both of the candidates, Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Congressman Ed Markey, said the same thing. They were “not concerned with disability politics but issues people with disabilities are concerned about,” said Markey.
Both candidates said they did not want “politically correct, narrow definitions of what disability is” to define them. In fact, Markey said, that it would be “unfortunate if we let a little thing like a disability become a big problem.”
Many people with disabilities have different opinions of how they feel about the issue. In a recent poll by Harvard’s Gazette, a majority of people said disabled people had benefited in society.
And, the only way to get to know the voters is by listening to their concerns on the ballot in May.
A Boston lawyer, who is not a candidate, and a writer who is not a candidate, both took a moment on Twitter and said, “As far as I