This Week's 10 Must-Reads

Outdated regulations are forcing many to choose between love and social security benefits.

Susan approached her husband, heart thumping, as he sat in their living room. Days earlier, on Valentine’s Day, she had been diagnosed with colon cancer. Now, her world was about to further unravel. Susan mustered up all her courage and told her husband that they needed to divorce.

Married for nearly three years, they were still in love and wanted to stay together. But to remain married would risk losing the health care Susan desperately needed. Diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at age 4, she has lived with chronic pain for as long as she can remember. Susan struggles to get around without a cane or power chair during flare-ups. She didn’t have private insurance at the time of her diagnosis, so Medicaid was critical for her to get the care she needed to manage her disability.

The sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities should stop peddling false promises.

My sister is in a national TV ad for the Special Olympics. She plays a bride, and her real-life boyfriend plays the groom. In the ad, they embrace on the steps of City Hall, the image of a newly wedded couple with Down syndrome. As they embrace, and as other actors with intellectual and developmental disabilities flash across the screen, we hear the voice of the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics and a sister of President John F. Kennedy:

The right to play on any playing field? You have earned it.
The right to study in any school? You have earned it.
The right to hold a job? You have earned it.

These things sound good. But not a single one of them is true.

These pathbreaking apps are helping Indians with disabilities fight stigma and find independence.

Shweta Mahavar was 25 when her parents first took out a newspaper advertisement to find her a groom. Wheelchair-bound since she was stricken with polio as a child, Mahavar knew finding love wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t anticipated the magnitude of her challenge. The men and their families that did respond shared an agenda — to extract a hefty dowry, citing her disability. Mahavar decided she wouldn’t marry, and for more than a decade buried her dreams of a life with a caring partner. Then, last year, she met Alok Kumar through Inclov, a matchmaking app for persons with disabilities in India. The couple got married on July 21, and Mahavar now has the love she had once given up on.