Critical Health and Learning Disabilities

“When I say that the first chapter is called, ‘As natural as the air around us’; the social murder of people labelled with learning disabilities, you begin to understand the necessary violence of this book. The book punctures all our various excuses and complicit and ineffective endeavours that have failed to bring about change. It’s urgent and passionate and above all utterly human – a quality which should go without saying but, as the book so forensically exposes, seems to need saying again.

Everything gets ‘turned over’ in this book, things get called out - theory, eugenics, ableism, health and care systems, governments, academia, charities. There is an unassailable and deeply uncomfortable and provocative argument at the core of this book about a State-sanctioned and State-actioned refusal to see learning disabled people as ‘proper people’ at all.

People being denied citizenship, denied life, denied love. Systematically, casually, deliberately. It made me want to cry tears of anger and deep, deep sadness, see my own part in it all and then get on with trying to be a useful ally. That the book is so badly needed is a terrible indictment. The question it leaves me with is, what now? It cannot be more of the same.”

Professor David Abbott, Chair in Social Policy, University of Bristol

“This compelling book lays bare the stark reality of how the humanity of people with learning disabilities is so often denied. By centering the concept of 'social murder,' the book reveals the conditions that lead to diminished lives and deaths, which remain disturbingly ignored by both wider society and those in power. Sara carefully guides readers through this frightening and incomprehensible landscape, posing critical questions about why so many scholars, policy makers and systems continue to overlook the lives of people with learning disabilities. This is an important read for all those committed to exposing the structural violence at play in the lives of people with learning disabilities.”

Professor Katherine Runswick-Cole, Chair in Education, University of Sheffield

“In this hard-hitting book, Professor Ryan uses exceptionally wide research to lay bare the scandalous way we treat people with learning disabilities - as people less deserving of respect, health, wealth or even life. It is a must read for people who care about human rights, as a prelude to changing this scandal.”

Jan Walmsley, Visiting Professor of the History of Learning Disabilities, The Open University