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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