International Disability Day of Mourning 2022

It’s March 1st, which means it’s once again the International Disability Day of Mourning. This is a day dedicated to mourning the losses of disabled people who were murdered, usually by parents or caregivers, because of their disability. It’s a solemn day for the disability community, and should be a solemn day for anybody who knows what it is.

I know I’ve been pretty quiet on here lately (I’ve a super busy patch at the moment), but I intend to keep my promise of publishing the names of people murdered just because they were autistic in the last year. Grim, I know. But I want to keep memorializing these people, both as a way to pay my respects and a way to demonstrate to readers the seriousness autism advocacy. The way that society views and treats autistic people matters. It is literally life or death. We as a global community urgently need to step up.

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to do a longer write-up on the significance of the International Disability Day of Mourning. But if you would like to read more, at the end of this post I will link to the previous three posts and name lists I have done on this day as well as the International Disability Day of Mourning Website.

Please take a moment of silence and contemplation as you read these names. Here is the list of autistic people murdered by their caregivers since last year:

Hezekiah Pettiford – Age 15

Peter Cuacuas – Age 7

Name Unknown – Age 16

Jax Ponomarenko – Age 5

Name Unknown – Age 9

Brian Cotter – Age 15

Liam Husted – Age 7

Darren Henson – Age 9

Hallen McConnie – Age 15

Chelsea Hill – Age 18

Connor Hill – Age 18

Mason Weston – Age 11

Richard Wix Jr. – Age 30

Kendrick Lee – Age 8

Nicole Hall – Age 8

Cara Broyles – Age 27

Ashton Yap – Age 11

Ethan Yap – Age 11

The list is longer this year than it was last year, standing yet again as a sickening reminder that we still have a long way to go. Lives stolen simply because of neurology. Let these names never be forgotten. Let the flame burn on.