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Author Archives: Zoe Gross

Following Meeting with Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Disability Rights Advocates Release Statement and Readout

| Zoe Gross

For Immediate Release: 1/14/2022 Contact: Jess Davidson, jdavidson@aapd.com Washington, D.C. – Today, following a meeting between leaders from disability rights organizations and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, advocates released the following statement:  Today’s dialogue with the CDC Director was long overdue. We should have never gotten to the point where...

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ASAN Denounces Court Ruling on Electric Skin Shock

| Zoe Gross

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is heartbroken and outraged by today’s court decision striking down a regulation that would have banned the use of the graduated electronic decelerator (GED), a skin shock device used on people with disabilities. These devices, which the United Nations has recognized as torture, involve...

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Working Towards Racial Justice in ASAN and the Autistic Community

| Zoe Gross

Over the last few months, the autistic community has had painful and necessary conversations about long-standing issues of racism within our community. Many BIPOC autistic advocates have spoken out about their experiences of racism, exclusion, and underrepresentation in autistic communities and in organized advocacy. And many of our community...

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🌼 ASAN May Update 🌼

| Zoe Gross

ASAN May Newsletter Dear friends, Heat, humidity, and Brood X cicadas… What a summer this is shaping up to be! As we start to enjoy the change in the season, we are also working on what we hope will be a summer full of change for our community. One...

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ASAN Submits Brief Opposing Autism-Related Arguments of Charleston Shooter’s Defense Team

| Zoe Gross

On June 17, 2015, a man opened fire on a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina and killed nine people, committing one of the deadliest acts of racist violence in recent history.  The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and the Autistic Women’s and Nonbinary Network (AWNN) have submitted a...

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Congress Abandons Disability Community in COVID Deal

| Zoe Gross

ASAN is furious that, ten months into the pandemic, Congress has yet again failed to provide any emergency funding for the home and community-based services to keep people with disabilities out of dangerous congregate settings. While the just-passed COVID relief package includes funding for unemployment insurance, SNAP, and other...

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Working to End Police Violence and Systemic Racism

| Zoe Gross

A month ago, we shared an update on how ASAN is working to keep our community safe through the COVID-19 pandemic. This month, we want to acknowledge that while the United States is still struggling with COVID-19, we are also in the midst of critical national protests against police...

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ASAN Condemns Block Grant Proposal

| Zoe Gross

The Trump Administration has given states the green light to apply for Medicaid block grants. Allowing states to change their Medicaid funding to block grants is almost certainly illegal, and will mean deep cuts to the Medicaid program in any state that applies. ASAN condemns this decision in the...

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ASAN Opposes Proposed Changes to Section 1557

| Zoe Gross

August 13, 2019 Department of Health and Human ServicesOffice for Civil RightsAttention: Section 1557 NPRM, RIN 0945-AA11 Hubert H. Humphrey Building, Room 509F200 Independence Avenue SWWashington, DC 20201 ASAN Comments Re: Proposed Rule, “Nondiscrimination in Health and Health Education Programs or Activities” (published June 14, 2019; 84 FR 27846,...

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ASAN Denounces President’s Remarks on Mental Health

| Zoe Gross

This past weekend, mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio killed at least 30 people and injured over 50 more. These mass shootings, the 16th and 17th in the United States this year this year, took place amidst a continued crisis of white supremacism in the US;...

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