Transcript 

Josie Pickens 

Welcome back to The upEND Podcast where we imagine a world beyond family policing. This episode is a companion to our Reclaiming Safety essay series where we explore what real protection looks like when we move away from surveillance and punishment and toward community care. 

In this conversation, we sit down with Dr. Robyn Powell, a leading voice on disability rights and justice to talk about how ableism and the legacy of eugenics are embedded in today’s family policing system, why disabled parents face higher risk of separation, and how we can build a future where disabled families are supported through care, access, and community instead of surveillance and control.

Robyn Powell

Thank you so much for having me.

Jaison Oliver

Dr. Powell is an assistant professor of law at Stetson University College of Law and a senior research associate at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University. Her scholarship centers on disability law, reproductive justice, family regulation, and constitutional law, with a particular focus on the rights of disabled parents and the abolition of the family policing system. She is the principal author of the National Council on Disabilities Landmark Report, Rocking the Cradle, Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children. And her work, published in leading law reviews and interdisciplinary journals, critically examines how law and policy perpetuate ableism and eugenics. Welcome, Robyn, and thank you for joining us.

Josie Pickens

We appreciate you so much for being here. And as Jaison read off all of these amazing things that you’ve done, all of this work that you continue to do for disabled families, we want to start with a little bit of your story, if that’s okay. Can you tell us how you came to this work and when you began to recognize that what we call child welfare actually functions as family policing?

Robyn Powell

Absolutely, thanks for asking. I think I came into this work a little accidentally. So I have a background as a social worker, that was my first career. And so I always  came into this thinking through the lens of social work. I obviously then became an attorney. I would also add, I’m a person with a disability. So as a disabled woman, all of these areas intertwined personally and professionally. 

So I came to this work both as a disabled scholar and as someone who’s spent over a decade studying disability policy, especially with respect to the rights, needs, and experiences of disabled parents and their children. And over time, I kept hearing the same devastating story over and over again. A disabled parent, especially a disabled parent who is poor, or multi-marginalized, or who is just lacking access to services, was losing their children not because of abuse or neglect, but because of stereotypes and really systems that were designed to surveil them rather than help them. And so I’ve done a lot of research including qualitative work with attorneys and parents and policy advocates. And that has increasingly made clear to me that what we call the child welfare system functions far more like a policing system. 

And so a few years ago, I was working on a paper where I was really trying to solve the issues. I was trying to come up with solutions to addressing this issue that I’ve been so passionate about for so long. And as I was writing this paper, I remember one day just sitting with my research assistant and saying, I don’t think we can fix the system. And I think he looked at me like I had lost my marbles a little bit. And I said, I don’t think the system’s broken. I think the system’s doing what it’s supposed to do. And that’s the problem.

And so in that moment, I really recognized  how the system uses really coercive investigations and monitoring and removal practices that really do mirror the criminal legal surveillance systems that we have seen. And families are being policed, not supported, under the guise of protecting children. And so learning all of this and having this moment of clarity, fundamentally shaped how I thought about all of this. And so it really has shaped my scholarship and my commitment to imagining something better. And that profound moment changed the paper from what we should do to fix the system to really saying we need to blow up the system. And so that is the moment I think that I became all in on abolition.

Jaison Oliver

I want to drill down on something that you spoke about a moment ago in that even with topics like abuse and neglect, which are kind of contentious in themselves, but even outside of that, this wasn’t even the reasoning that people were using to remove children from the families of disabled parents, right? And the history of eugenics still shapes how society views who is fit, know, quote unquote, fit to parent. Who we see is who is fit to parent. What do we mean by the term eugenics and how does the myth that disabled people shouldn’t have children continue to influence both policy and public opinion?

Robyn Powell

Yeah, that’s a really interesting question. So I really believe that eugenics is  how we understand our current problems. And I don’t claim to be a historian by any respect, but I think that not understanding these ideas through a lens of eugenics is really a big mistake. 

So eugenics is the belief that society can essentially be controlled and improved if we try to control who reproduces. And really what that means is  encouraging certain types of people to have children while discouraging or preventing others from doing so. And those others are of course always people with disabilities and  other marginalized communities. And so this era, the eugenics movement, grew out of the late 19th century, early 20th century. We saw forced sterilization as well as bans on marriage and institutionalization, as well as mechanisms to prevent people with disabilities from reproducing as well as those who are deemed socially unfit. 

And this was approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 in the Buck v. Bell decision, a case that has never been overturned, might I add. But that case came about after a woman who was considered quote-unquote feeble minded, which was the term they used at the time, had had a child. And after having that child, they said, “We will not release you from this institution unless you are sterilized.” And the whole rationale that we see in the Supreme Court is that it’s better for society and for the child if they’re not being raised by a person with a disability. 

And so, it was in 1927 that the Buck v. Bell decision was decided. And I think many people imagine eugenics as something from the past, but its core ideas really continue to live on today. Disabled people, we continue to face skepticism about our ability to parent, and really that leads to continuing forced sterilization, restrictions imposed by guardians, and even biased medical counseling.

And again, it’s all based on this idea that people with disabilities are not fit to have children. And courts still to this day cite disability as a predictor of harm, despite clear evidence that disability alone does not correlate with parental unfitness. And we see over 40 states continue to include disability as grounds for termination of parental rights.

And so what we’re seeing time and time again is that the legacy of eugenics really continues to show up when professionals and policymakers assume that people with disabilities are inherently incapable of raising children. As well as when services are denied instead of provided based on that assumption that they won’t benefit, and when the state intervenes not to support families, but to instead limit people with disabilities autonomy and right to raise a child.

Jaison Oliver

I want to just highlight a couple of things that people may not immediately understand what that means in the audience and among listeners. So we’re talking about forced sterilization or biased medical counseling. What does that actually look like in practice or in policy? What does that look like for people?

Robyn Powell

It means essentially stopping people with disabilities from being able to reproduce, essentially tying their tubes. And it is often done coercively. We have over 31 states and the District of Columbia that still allow for forced sterilization of people with disabilities. Generally speaking, it does need to go through the courts, but the courts are really just rubber stamping this. If a guardian or a caregiver says, it’s in the person’s best interest for them not to be able to reproduce, the courts essentially always defer to that guardian or caregiver. 

And if you want a current example of what this looks like, we can think of Britney Spears from a few years ago when she was being released from her 13-year conservatorship, which is just another word for guardianship. And part of her 23 minute testimony on why she should no longer be under conservatorship was that she meant that she wanted to have more children, but she was being denied that opportunity because the doctors would not remove her IUD because her guardian or conservator would not allow it. 

So that is just emblematic of what this all looks like. And with respect to medical counseling, I mean, even myself as a person with a disability, I can’t tell you the number of times doctors have asked me over the years would you like to have a hysterectomy? And that has never been for medical justification. There’s never been me indicating that that’s something I wanted. But doctors continue to have those eugenics based beliefs that people with disabilities should not be reproducing. So I think there’s so many examples of this happening today. It’s just frightening.

Josie Pickens

Hmm, that’s so much information. I’m thinking of myself as someone who has tried to have conversations with doctors about hysterectomies and it being kind of a denial process and being pushed against for me and having that be at the forefront for birthing people or people living with disabilities.

Jaison Oliver

I was just gonna say that’s something I hear too. A lot of women talk about when they speak with doctors and broach the topic of having a hysterectomy, the doctor tries to discourage them and says like, “What if what if your future husband…” The expectation is like, what if your future husband wants to have kids, right? And so they make it really challenging for people who want to have hysterectomies to do it. Like, oh, no, this isn’t something we can come back from. 

So to hear the kind of opposite perspective of this being something that’s encouraged for you, even with no kind of medical basis, when people who actually have medical, like real medical challenges are actively being discouraged from it is really interesting.

Robyn Powell

Yeah, people with disabilities are never asked if they’re going to have children. So,  growing up all of my friends would always get asked like, “When are you going to have kids? You’re getting older, when are you going to have kids?” And I can tell you that people with disabilities do not get asked that question. And so the pendulum has swung so far from one to the other. Like, we don’t even get any discouragement to get a hysterectomy. We’re encouraged!

There is a presumption that we should not be having children. And that, again, it is alive and well today. It’s just something that continues. And I think we can take that even further with contraception. I always say contraception is this weird thing for people with disabilities because there’s two sides to it. On the one hand, many people with disabilities are forced to use contraception, again, Britney Spears being a really good example. And then research also shows this other group of people with disabilities that are not even offered contraception because there’s a presumption that they don’t need it. 

And what I think is the through line between both of those is just the lack of autonomy, that lack of people with disabilities being able to make those decisions. And again, it all ties back to eugenics.

Josie Pickens 

Yeah, that invites a much deeper conversation around the intersections and connections of reproductive justice work and disability justice work in the same way that we try to draw parallels between reproductive justice work and family policing abolition. So thank you for making all of that clear. 

Robyn, I’d like to talk a bit about neglect, which Jaison said earlier was this contentious term that really is a catchall for really anything. Many so-called neglect cases are really about poverty. Things like the lack of childcare, housing, or medical care. So how do poverty and disability combine to make families more vulnerable? And what kinds of support would actually help those families stay together?

Robyn Powell

That is an excellent question. So first to answer one piece of it, then I’ll get into the support piece. But I think it’s important to understand this idea of neglect. And I fully, 100% agree that the definitions of neglect really just means poverty. There’s really no other definition. And I always say poverty is just the lack of something, which you can easily correct, right? By just providing that something. 

But I would also just importantly note that with people with disabilities or disabled parents in particular, we see that courts and family policing systems in general often use this idea of predictive neglect. So there doesn’t even need to be anything at all. Predictive neglect has been used against parents with disabilities, which is why parents with disabilities have a very high chance of having involvement within the first year of them giving birth. And it’s often under this idea of predictive neglect, they must have this crystal ball somewhere that has determined that people with disabilities will just put their children in harm. It’s important to understand that. 

Again, I fully agree that the definition of neglect is really just interchangeable with the definition of poverty. And that is so important because poverty is both a cause and consequence of disability, meaning that people with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty, and poverty often can cause disabilities. So the connection between poverty and disability is significant. And we know that most cases that come into the family policing system are rooted in poverty, not abuse. And families who lack stable housing or adequate income or childcare, or even I would say medical or mental health care, are far more likely to be investigated and separated.

And so for families where there’s disabled parents, these barriers are then compounded by this lack of accessible services, gaps in benefits programs, and these overarching institutional biases that exist. So what do we do about that? Real support means things like universal access to housing, and childcare, and healthcare.

It also means things like home and community-based services for disabled parents and their children. And it means income supports that actually meet basic needs. And it really means shifting resources away from surveillance and instead toward meeting material conditions. Because when families have what they need, they stay safely together. And so we can do this if we want to.

Jaison Oliver

You know, on this podcast, meeting material conditions and needs of people? We don’t agree with that at all! That’s definitely not something that we talk about here at upEND! I’m just like laughing when I hear about childcare and housing. These basic things! And yet, it’s such a challenge to make this a priority.

Robyn Powell

Which is wild. That is just completely bananas. Like we could easily shift our priorities if we wanted to.

Josie Pickens

We hope you’re enjoying The upEND Podcast.  A quick note: upEND is funded through the generosity of people like you who believe that ending the harm of the family policing system will help us to create a safer future. If you’re enjoying this podcast, we hope that you’ll consider donating to our work. Visit upendmovement.org/donate for more information.

Jaison Oliver

Yeah. I want to talk about parents with mental health disabilities. How do you see the family policing system treating those parents with mental health disabilities? And what kinds of support could make parenting more sustainable rather than leading to removal?

Robyn Powell

Parents with mental health disabilities encounter the worst of the worst discrimination by the family policing system. And that’s because they are routinely treated as if their disability tells the whole story about their parenting. That their disability, their diagnosis, is indicative of what kind of parents they will be. And so instead of individualized assessments, parents who have mental health disabilities face these blanket assumptions that they’re unstable, they’re unpredictable, and most notably, dangerous. And these myths are deeply rooted in stigma. Tons of research shows that people with mental health disabilities are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. 

But when we hear stories about parents with mental health disabilities, it’s always the worst case scenario, right? We hear terrible stories about parents who have postpartum syndrome and things like that doing terrible things, so people assume that that’s what happens with all parents who have mental health disabilities, which of course is not the case. And again, most parents with mental health disabilities are fully capable of raising their children. And so again, it’s all deeply rooted in stigma. 

And so what actually can help these families is to first, recognize their capacity to be parents. I think that’s where I would start, but also ensuring that they have access to voluntary non-coercive mental health care, that they have access to stable housing, respite, peer support, and parenting assistance that supports their autonomy, meaning we ask them what they need. We don’t make any presumptions about what they need. When supports are designed collaboratively rather than imposed upon through court mandates, parents are able to safely and confidently care for their children and they can benefit from all of those supports. 

But again, there are these assumptions that parents with mental health disabilities can’t do it, that they’re dangerous, and that they won’t benefit from services, or that we impose all of these ridiculous services on them that don’t actually address any of their needs and just require them to jump through a million hoops. And that is the common experience of parents with mental health disabilities.

Josie Pickens

Thank you for that, Robyn. I am also thinking about physical disabilities, and I’m sure that some of the answers that you just offered around, families who are dealing with mental health disabilities would apply to physical disabilities as well. We’re talking shame, we’re talking stigma, we’re talking stereotypes, we’re talking biases. We know that this is often the center of how we understand people living with physical disabilities and particularly parents living with physical disabilities. 

What patterns or assumptions do you see most in family policing cases and what kind of support actually helps parents with physical disabilities thrive?

Robyn Powell

Yeah, so you’re absolutely correct. Many of the things I mentioned about parents with mental health disabilities, would also relate to parents who have physical disabilities. Parents with physical disabilities often confront assumptions that they cannot meet their children’s physical needs, that they’re too quote-unquote dependent, or that their children are going to be their caregivers. So there’s this idea that if you need help to care for yourself, that means you can’t care for others. 

I think parents with physical disabilities often have this myth that they experience where if they receive care, then they can’t give care. So if they need any physical care, then that must mean that they can’t be caregivers, right? Because they are care recipients. And this assumption that you can’t be both. These misconceptions overlook the role of adaptive equipment, accessible environments. family and community networks. It’s sort of creative parenting strategies. 

I think parents with disabilities are undoubtedly the most creative. And they’ve lived this life where we’re forced to live in a world that’s not built for us. So we are very creative people. So true support, I think, would include things like assistive technologies, accessible homes and home modifications, accessible transportation and personal assistance services that really give disabled parents that right to care for their children, to love their children, to nurture their children. And I think when supports are available, the question is no longer whether disabled people can parent, but rather whether systems are willing to let them.

Jaison Oliver

You talked about the creativity of the disabled community. I have some friends who have helped to really teach me about ableism and crip wisdom, and just the types of knowledge that can come from being more aware of the different ways that we move through the world. 

I’m wondering what technologies or resources you see people who might not consider themselves disabled at the moment, what types of things we can learn or take advantage of, particularly parents, that we might learn from disabled parents or something. Like are there things that come to mind that we could all benefit from if we really paid attention to disabled families?

Robyn Powell

I mean, looking at the strategies that parents with disabilities use, whether it is adapting their home environment so that they can access everything they need. Something I think about a lot is parents who use wheelchairs often don’t use changing tables because they can’t get their wheelchair underneath it. So they use a table, a desk, things like that. I think parents with disabilities in general, and parents without disabilities also, have benefited a lot from the increase in technology, right? Like Instacart, getting groceries delivered. That is really an accommodation. I would say it makes things like groceries accessible. And everyone can benefit from that. It’s also just how you care for your children. 

Parents with disabilities or physical disabilities in particular really have to work with the child and they create this mutual relationship where they work off each other. There’s studies that talk about sort of, have looked at and observed parents with physical disabilities changing newborn babies and newborn babies even know like, I can’t move around and things like that. And they see how kids adapt to their parents’ needs. And I think that is just something that we don’t recognize that kids are able to adapt and kids of disabled parents benefit tremendously. 

I don’t think we talk about what are the benefits of having a parent with a disability? But there are things like resilience. There are things like understanding the importance of inclusion. Kids of disabled parents are far more open-minded. I think that they are independent in a way that is not a bad thing. Often kids are not taught to be independent. And you will see that none of those things are that they are caring for their parents, which is often this assumption. 

And I will tell you, my observations is that, parents with disabilities are so cautious about having their kids do anything that they probably honestly do less chores because they don’t want to ever be seen as relying on their child for anything that a quote-unquote parent should be doing. So again, these environments are actually a benefit to a lot of kids. We just focus so much on, “What is the child losing?” and not, “What is the child gaining?”

Jaison Oliver

I’m thinking about some of the binaries that people create as they’re thinking about families where the care has to go one way, right? So if it’s a disabled parent, then the child must be taking care of the parent and the parent’s not able to offer care to the child. And so much of our work as abolitionists is tearing down those binaries, right? It doesn’t all have to look one way. We can create the infrastructure that we need to thrive, and that can look different for all of us. And that doesn’t have to be a burden. Like that can actually be something that we are excited about creating. 

So if we’re imagining an abolitionist future for parents with disabilities in particular, what would real support look like as we’re looking toward the future? How could community care through things like pods or mutual aid or peer networks replace the surveillance and punishment that families face today? 

I know we’ve kind of jumped in on this a bit, but I just really think that there is a lot of potential for us as we’re thinking about accommodations, because that language is so kind of targeted toward the disabled community, to think about that more broadly for like, what does an accommodationist future look like from an abolitionist perspective? What does that look like?

Robyn Powell

Yeah, that’s a great question. I will start by just noting that accessibility benefits everyone. So if you don’t believe me, think about curb cuts. Push a stroller and you’re going to appreciate curb cuts. So everyone benefits when things are accessible. So I feel like we often think of accessibility as an afterthought or a burden, but it’s actually something that everyone benefits from. So what then does an abolitionist future look like? I think that it rejects the idea that families need to be monitored and controlled in order to be safe. And instead, it really imagines a world where communities rather than systems are providing that care. That means accessible, community-run childcare. That means things like guaranteed housing, income and disability benefits that actually allow families to thrive.

Also things like peer-led parenting support. Parents with disabilities learn from other parents with disabilities. And so how do we facilitate that and support that? Things like networks of mutual aid that can respond to crises without resulting in criminalization. And really, it means investing in the conditions that make caregiving possible rather than punishing families when those conditions fail. And so for parents with disabilities, it also means really fully implementing disability justice principles, like interdependence, collective access, liberation, and really the belief that all families deserve to exist and be supported without living in constant fear of removal.

Jaison Oliver

You mentioned income benefits. And that is also something that people don’t have a clear idea about in terms of wages and income. I think folks hear terms like disability check and have an association in their mind that folks are just kind of chilling and living comfortably, but you specifically mentioned income benefits that allow people to thrive. Like what does that look like now? And why do you feel like people aren’t able to thrive now?

Robyn Powell

Yeah, there is this belief that disabled people are living this fabulous life. And I’d love to know all these rich disabled people because that’s not true. So if you receive Supplemental Security Income or SSI, which is the most common social security disability benefit, you receive about $950 a month. And that does not increase if you have children. So you don’t receive extra benefits if you have children, which means you are expected to be able to live on about $950 a month, no matter if you’re one person or a family. And that is just impossible. And if you get married to a person that receives benefits, also your benefits are cut in half. If you get married to a person who does not receive benefits, you will lose your benefits entirely.

And I think all of these systems have been built on the presumption that people with disabilities will not form families, going back to eugenics. None of our disability policies or benefits programs exist in a way that recognizes that people with disabilities want to have relationships and they want to have families. And so we have all of these support programs that don’t actually support families or do not support parenting in any way or relationship formation.

That is something we could address. Again, we know that it costs so much more to put children into the foster care system than if we just were to support them in their families. And I think that people don’t recognize just how little disability benefits are. Again, there’s this presumption that people with disabilities are getting rich off of these benefits, and I can assure you that no one is getting rich off of them because they are not even tenable at all.

Josie Pickens

This is so rich. I’m learning so much from you, Robyn. I’m even thinking about your answer of like, what are the benefits? How do children benefit when they have a parent who is disabled? 

I’m also thinking as an organizer, like how I can learn and benefit from disabled organizers and leaders. I’m thinking about how we can strengthen our interdependence. These are things that we need when we’re talking about community care overall. I’m also thinking about the amount of mapping and thought that goes into the lives of people living with disabilities, right. You mentioned earlier this idea of pods being a part of the community care component of how we can support families. Can you talk a bit about pod mapping?

Robyn Powell

This is one of those examples where we need to be led by parents with disabilities. So I’m not going to offer all the solutions because I think we do need to be looking to disabled parents to determine what best benefits them. But we know that mutual aid networks are a huge piece of disability justice. And it hasn’t been super used in the world of parenting to this point, but it could be incredibly beneficial. We’ve seen mutual aid networks help with things like emergencies and responses, thinking about the wildfires in California, for example. And disabled people really created these really important mutual aid networks to support one another. It means parents with disabilities helping one another because  everyone has their different needs and experiences. And it really requires collaboration and also support for that. 

Because right now, so many disability-led organizations are not fully disability-led, first of all. They are loosely disability-led and are not based on these ideas of disability justice and interdependence. There’s such a huge priority for people with disabilities to be quote-unquote independent, that we totally dismiss the importance of interdependence. So I think like these pods or mutual aid networks could really embrace that idea that everyone needs help, everyone needs others, and that’s not a bad thing. 

So how do we create communities that can really thrive, help one another, and how do we really respect those communities? And again, it goes back to bringing disabled people to the forefront of these conversations, having them lead the way. I’m always hesitant to determine what other disabled people need because I can’t speak for all disabled people. And when I say bring them to the table, it also can’t be tokenizing. Like they have to not only be brought to the table, but they need to be at the head of the table, right? And so, how do we bring this together? 

And I think that is what makes disability justice so important. Disability justice really grew out of, amongst other things, abolition in general. So disability justice principles are very much aligned with the abolition movement. And so there’s just so much opportunity for collaboration.

Josie Pickens

You mentioned how a lot of times organizations that are supposed to be rooted in disability justice are often loosely led or not led at all by disabled people. Where do you see promising examples of disabled leadership in the family policing, abolition space, or any spaces? We would love some examples.

Robyn Powell 

There has been a lot of work done on abolition within the criminal legal system amongst disability justice organizers and scholars. There hasn’t been as much focus on family policing, but again, I think they’re incredibly aligned, right? And as I said, there has been a lot of work on mutual aid networks in general, whether it is helping someone in an emergency or helping someone who’s at risk of losing or has lost community-based supports because our systems are terrible in many ways. 

And so I think people with disabilities have really tried to essentially pick up the slack in many ways. But I think that that isn’t necessarily a terrible thing if we can support that. And again, family policing is so interconnected with the disability justice principles in general, which again are based on the same ideas, know, interdependence, collective access, liberation, intersectionality, all of these things that are so vital to the family policing abolition movement in general. And so I think there’s just so many opportunities that are just going ignored. 

And I think that the piece around disability-led Disability Justice came out in the early 2000s in response to the disability rights movement, which was often leaving people behind that had disabilities. And so the disability rights movement has been based on, in many parts, disability-led. But as you pointed out, that has not been at the center of it, really. That has not come to reality. But disability justice is actually disability-led, which is why I completely believe that we need to shift the paradigm and really adopt the principles of disability justice. I write about in my first piece on evolution, just like how aligned the two movements are and how I think they can be beneficial to both parties. 

And again, I go back to what I started with, like disabled people are so creative and they’re so used to living in a world that’s not made for them that they can come up with programs and policies and support systems in ways that I don’t think the average person will be able to but yet everyone would benefit, right? If we focus on the needs of those that are most marginalized, everyone will benefit, right? Like that is sort of the center of it. Like if we were to intentionally focus on those whose needs or those who have been most marginalized, are oppressed, everyone would benefit. But instead, we don’t do that. And that’s where things fall apart.

Jaison Oliver

If people are coming out of this podcast wanting to really follow up and start to dive into disability justice, if this is their introduction, where would you direct them?

Robyn Powell 

I would go to Sins Invalid. So it is a grassroots disability justice arts movement that really were the creators of the disability justice principles. And they are at the forefront of this. There’s also a lot of writing that’s been done by folks like Alice Wong, who recently passed away, but who was a huge leader in the disability justice movement and she created the Disability Visibility Project and so you can also go to her website, which I’m certain still exists, and she did such incredible work on disability justice that you would learn immensely. There’s many books written by her. I think just looking at Sins Invalid and Alice Wong’s work, specifically Disability Visibility Project would be great areas to just begin your looking and understanding of disability justice.

Josie Pickens 

Wow, you’ve just given us so much Robyn. This has been so informative and so meaningful. Before we close, can you also share how people can connect with you and follow your work?

Robyn Powell

Yeah, so I am at Stetson Law. So if you go to the Stetson Law website, you can find me. I’m happy to answer questions and communicate. I’m always looking to connect so you can look me up on social media, of course, or you can send me an email, rpowell3@law.stetson.edu. And again, I’m always looking to collaborate and I truly believe that disability and disability justice in particular need to be part of the abolition movement moving forward. And so anything I can do to support that, it’s really important to me.

Jaison Oliver

Thank you for joining us Robyn and for sharing so much with us. I definitely learned a lot from this conversation.

Robyn Powell

Thank you.

Josie Pickens

Absolutely. Yes, we appreciate you taking time with us and appreciate all the work that you’re doing on behalf of people living with disabilities and families living with disabilities.

Jaison Oliver 

And those of us who aren’t living with disabilities, To benefit from this as well. Right, exactly.

Josie Pickens

Absolutely.

Robyn Powell

Not at the moment. Right, anyone can acquire a disability at any moment. And we are a club that is open to all, I always say. And if you are lucky enough to live long enough, you will most likely have a disability. Also, one in four individuals in the United States have a disability. So it is a very large segment of our population.

Jaison Oliver

Right.

Josie Pickens

Absolutely. And that’s something that I was going to say as well. There are some people who are living with disabilities who don’t recognize that or who don’t understand that. So yeah, this work is for all of us and for everyone. So we really appreciate you being here.

Robyn Powell

Thank you.