A new Massachusetts state law passed in November 2025 will make records from state institutions for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities or mental health conditions accessible for the first time. Generations of disabled people lived and died in those institutions beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. Many experienced horrific abuse, and their histories have long been obscured.
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Access to mental health care is rapidly expanding in Illinois, thanks to a legislative victory won through a grassroots campaign that united patients and health care providers to take on the power of the health insurance industry. As organizers who worked on the campaign, we’re excited to share the story of our win with the hope that it will give momentum and inspiration to similar campaigns in…
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immigration enforcement is taking a toll on Dr. Daisy León-Martínez’s patients. The California OB-GYN primarily cares for Latina-identifying pregnant people and those with a Spanish-language preference. In the months since President Donald Trump began his mass deportation campaign, some of her patients’ partners have been detained by immigration officials or were removed from the…
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On November 18, 2025, Massachusetts advocates gathered for hours at the State House as they have, year after year, to beat back yet another legislative proposal for involuntary outpatient commitment, or IOC. Involuntary outpatient commitment laws create a layer of specialized courts that use the so-called “Black Robe Effect,” which uses a judge’s authority to compel people with diagnoses of…
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“There’s nothing wrong with him. If there were, it would say so in his file.” I heard a licensed mental health counselor say those words to a correctional officer as they stood side by side, watching a man through a large plexiglass window that took up most of the wall of an observation cell, a cell used for people deemed a threat to themselves or others. Inside, the man was visibly…
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