Why Are We Accepting State-Sanctioned Social Murder?

Sara Ryan’s new book makes the comprehensive argument that people with learning disabilities experience fatal violence at the hands of the state. Why? Because we do not see them as ‘human’

Connor Sparrowhawk drowned in a bath in an NHS unit in 2013 following an epileptic seizure with no care staff present. Photo: Sara Ryan

In 2023, I was commissioned to write a book about health inequalities and people with learning disabilities. A straightforward task, I thought, involving a good read of the existing research in this area.

We know that, in the UK, people with learning disabilities continue to experience impoverished lives: only 4% of the estimated 1.5 million adults with learning disabilities are in employment, people are often prevented from having relationships, and children and adults die on average 20-30 years before their non-disabled peers.

The structure and content of the book were not in question.

But, during a year spent reading and writing long into the darkness, the book changed shape slowly, and at times painfully, as I developed a comprehensive argument that people with learning disabilities experience state-sanctioned social murder.

Nothing I read dissuaded me from this controversial position or convinced me that I was making too much of a stretch.

It was not an argument I wanted to make, particularly given that my 18-year-old son Connor Sparrowhawk, who had learning disabilities, died a preventable death in 2013.

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