Medical Motherhood’s news round up
Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story.
• From The 19th: “For families of medically fragile children, a policy change threatens the care they need at home”
The Department of Justice asked a federal appeals court earlier this month to vacate its March decision in a long-running case about requiring medically fragile children in Florida to receive the care they need while living at home with their families. The news came as a massive blow to parents who had hoped the state would be forced to provide better support for their children.
The move comes two months after the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel released a memo declaring that it would no longer enforce a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Olmstead v. LC, which in 1999 established that people with disabilities have a right to live in ordinary communities rather than institutional settings like nursing homes or asylums. LC, better known to her friends as Lois Curtis, and her co-plaintiff, Elaine Wilson, got to move into an apartment instead of continuing to live in a Georgia state hospital. The women’s case changed the legal landscape for Americans with disabilities and their families.
In a June memo, the DOJ declared Olmstead unenforceable and said that states have no requirement to provide home and community care.[…]
• From Cato Institute: “(Analysis) Immigrants Are 24% Less Likely to Be Disabled Than US-Born Citizens”
In November 2025, the Trump administration began rejecting some visa applicants based on health problems, asking if applicants and their children have “disabilities, chronic medical conditions, or other special needs.” On Tuesday this week, the State Department ordered a pause on all immigrant visa appointments worldwide to better train consular officers on more restrictive guidance, enforcing these rules as well as others intended to exclude immigrants likely to use public benefits.
Although some immigrants do become disabled, this analysis finds that immigrants, legal and illegal, were 24 percent less likely to be disabled than the US-born population in 2024, and were less likely to be disabled at nearly every age regardless of immigration status. Their lower disability rate led to significantly less use of disability benefits, but even disabled immigrants draw on those benefits less than disabled US-born citizens.[…]
• From Disability Scoop: “States See Spike In Special Ed Complaints”
With major changes happening in Washington, families are increasingly turning to states to help resolve special education disputes.
Data collected from 33 states shows that written complaints related to special education are up nearly 48%.[…]
• From Hartford Courant: “CT residents say state agency practice is ‘unconstitutional.’ Don’t reduce our loved ones ‘to a number.’”
[…]The civil lawsuit, filed by Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder of Bridgeport, Feinstein Education Law Group, and the Center for Children’s Advocacy, is against the state Department of Developmental Services and Commissioner Elisa Velardo over the department’s denial of eligibility for services to disabled residents “on the basis of a strict intelligence quotient [IQ]” cutoff pursuant to state law, which the plaintiffs allege “arbitrarily deprives Connecticut residents of resources to which they would otherwise be entitled.”
As the cutoff is being applied, it is creating an “unconstitutional bureaucratic gap,” said attorney Luke Reynolds, of Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder. “They are denied services designed to help them.”[…]
• From Disability Scoop: “Federal Panel Adopts Overhauled Autism Plan”
A key panel approved a sweeping new autism agenda calling on the government to restructure its priorities and nearly double its investment in the developmental disability.
The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, or IACC, voted Thursday to adopt a new strategic plan, the first comprehensive update in more than three years.[…]
• From Seattle’s Child: “Autism Resources for Vietnamese Families in Washington”
[…]While there are dozens of resources for families with autistic children and those with developmental delays in Washington, Dr. Thanh Kirkpatrick, a pediatrician at Rainier Valley’s HopeCentral Clinic and executive director of the Vietnamese Family Autism Advisory Board (VFAAB), said: “There are so many barriers for the [Vietnamese] community.”
[…]Karen Yao, VFAAB family champion and a mother of an autistic boy, said many Vietnamese families don’t share their child’s learning delays with others.
“Many times they don’t want others to know they have a child with disabilities because people in the community might think the universe is punishing the family for something they did wrong,” said Yao.[…]
Around the world…
• From The Telegraph: “AfD pledge to send refugees and disabled children to separate schools”
Refugee and disabled children will be removed from mainstream education in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt if the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party wins the imminent regional election.
The AfD’s manifesto sets out plans for a major educational overhaul, which would decrease the number of comprehensive schools in Saxony-Anhalt. It states that the “inclusion experiment has failed and must be ended”.
Special schools (“Förderschulen”) would be expanded to better meet the needs of disabled children, it said.[…]
• From Irish Examiner: “Girl diagnosed as non-verbal autistic living in Dublin hospital since February”
[…]Marykate O’Donoghue, who was diagnosed as non-verbal autistic with a moderate-to-severe intellectual disability when she was five, has been staying at Temple Street Children’s Hospital since February after her parents ran out of money for her care.
[…]”We brought her to hospital because we couldn’t manage any more,” Maryjane told the Irish Examiner, adding: “Our child has been abandoned by the State.”[…]
• From The Straits Times (Singapore): “(Opinion) Child needed calm corner, but front-line staff’s response was unsupportive”
I applaud our national cultural institutions, including the Asian Civilisations Museum and the National Heritage Board, for introducing dedicated calm corners. However, our recent experience was a stark reminder of how easily well-intentioned spaces are undermined when front-line personnel act as subjective gatekeepers.
[…]Waiting for a child to experience a full, public meltdown before validating their distress fundamentally misunderstands invisible disabilities.
More critically, when an unqualified person questions a child who has proactively sought help, it risks crushing the very self-advocacy and emotional regulation we work so hard to nurture.[…]
• From The Herald Business: “Hyundai Motor delivers mobility aids to children with disabilities”
Hyundai Motor’s management and union held an event Wednesday at the Ulsan Comprehensive Welfare Center […and…] delivered customized mobility equipment to 48 children with disabilities — including those with brain lesions, physical impairments and intellectual disabilities — providing stroller-type wheelchairs, in-vehicle postural support devices, power wheelchairs, postural support chairs, front-and-rear walking aids and rear-support walkers.[…]
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