Season 02, Episode 19Co-Hosts: Nadine Vogel & Norma StanleyGuest: Sheri Byrne-Haber

Intro: [Music playing in background] Disabled Lives Matter... here we go!

Voiceover: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the disabled lives matter podcast. Let's welcome co-hosts Nadine Vogel and Norma Stanley.

Nadine Vogel: Hello and welcome to the podcast disabled lives matter i'm Nadine Vogel one of your hosts I am joined by my fabulous co host Norma Stanley.

Norma: Hello everyone.

Nadine Vogel: And we want everyone to remember that this is more than a podcast, this is a movement and I absolutely think that you will agree, after hearing today's guest Sherry Byrne that you are going to agree with us so sherry, welcome to the show.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Thank you, glad to be part of the movement.

Nadine Vogel: Absolutely absolutely and you know you have done so much, I think you have helped create the movement in many ways, so maybe we could start just tell our audience a little bit about your background because it's I think it's fabulous.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Sure, so i've been in the field of digital accessibility for about the last 12 years before that I was an advocate for the Deaf.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): kind of an eclectic educational background I started off in tech with a degree in computer science.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): And then I became a lawyer, thinking that I was going to do, intellectual property and then I ended up going into accessibility, because of my daughter losing her hearing, so I do have a congenital mobility problem I use a wheelchair for getting around longer distances.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): But yeah i've been you know living eating sleeping and breathing the disability movement literally since I was born.

Nadine Vogel: Literally exactly so you know let's just get right into this People with disabilities are discriminated.

Nadine Vogel: They are discriminated in so many different ways and and what's so disheartening to me.

Nadine Vogel: You know my company springboard, this is what we do right we help companies mainstream people with disabilities in all aspects so that they're not discriminated against, but I feel like you know we barely move the needle.

Nadine Vogel: So, can you talk to us about at all the ways, you see, people with disabilities discriminated.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Well, you know some of it is unconscious bias and some of it is a little bit more overt.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know if you don't buy accessible software you're inherently discriminating against your employees with disabilities, because they may not be able to use it.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): People with the hiring managers that are frequently not trained on how to interview people with who are neuro diverse.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): In particular, you know if you're looking for I contact a firm handshake that's not going to work for hiring people with disabilities that's automatically going to discriminate against them.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know, some of them are subtle discrimination i've seen is especially in the job of employment area, which is where i'm particularly active.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Is an applicant tracking systems if they're looking for gaps in resumes and automatically rejecting those people that's automatically going to.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): impact, people with disabilities, because they're going to have more likely to have gaps they're more likely to be laid off they're more likely to have medical conditions that force them to leave their jobs and and deal with the conditions before they can go back to work.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know and and some of it is just you know, out of fear I can't tell you how many times i've been in the grocery store in my wheelchair, and you know the you know some child points to me out of curiosity and the mom says Oh, shhh and they run to the next style right, you know they you know.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): People are indoctrinated to a very early age, that disability is negative disability is bad and they are not taught that people with disabilities matter or the people with disabilities can thrive.

Norma: That's right.

Nadine Vogel: Absolutely I mean Norma and I both have adult daughters with disabilities and we see it all the time don't we norma.

Norma: Absolutely it's it's maddening.

Nadine Vogel: yeah and you know this issue you bring up the unconscious bias I, I have a just a personal thing that.

Nadine Vogel: I think biases I don't believe in unconscious bias, I think people consciously are bias, but.

Nadine Vogel: It may be because of that mom that told them just to shush right how they grew up how they the inexperi inexperiences they didn't have it doesn't mean they're trying to be mean it's just that they don't know like you said they.

Nadine Vogel: don't have the training and the understanding and you know it just you know it, for me, even I I went through this issue with elementary schools were when they started teach teaching foreign languages and teaching like Chinese and German and Italian why aren't you teaching sign language.

Nadine Vogel: Why why isn't that.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): it's taking a long time for sign language to get actually recognized as.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): A foreign language credit.

Norma: Absolutely.

Nadine Vogel:  Exactly.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): But it wasn't until some of the major schools like Princeton the Ivy league's like Princeton and Cornell started doing it that everybody else went oh well if they're doing it, we should do it too.

Nadine Vogel: Absolutely absolutely so I want to come back to your comment about the applicant tracking systems, so do you have a solution to that.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): um I don't know that I do you know the the software companies are you know, like.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): JESSICA rabbit they say well we're not bad it's just how we're used that makes us bad and you know you hear that from social media you hear that from from a lot of different companies, you know I would prefer that companies not offer options that allow people to discriminate. right.

Nadine Vogel: right right.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): That you know that's that's my way of thinking, you know short of that all you can do is education or you know, a big lawsuit.

{Laughter.}

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): that's that's the one, nothing will teach a company faster.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): That what they're doing is wrong than having to shell out a bunch of money on legal fees and settlement agreements because it turns out what they did was wrong.

Norma: right.

Nadine Vogel: right.

Nadine Vogel: And then, and you know what's interesting to me that when I see that i'm always like Okay, so now, the other companies, especially at least within their industry they'll get it now I still don't see that.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): They will, or they won't most most litigation doesn't go to trial and most end up in confidential settlement agreements so unless it's the E-E-O-C or the Department of Justice suing I would say, probably only about I mean my best guess would be maybe one in 100.

Nadine Vogel: Ugh.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): lawsuits filed you ever hear about.

Norma: Wow.

Nadine Vogel: Norma this is not good.

Norma: not good at all, you know, I was in a situation not to long ago where.

Norma: Somebody was going to a restaurant a brand new restaurant and the way the seats were situated my daughter's wheelchair we could not maneuver to the table that it was a birthday party and I sharing with the manager, can you please you may need to provide me these things.

Norma: And its a manual chair, can you imagine if it was a power chair.

Norma: And I found out from some of the guests who were there, who I guess didn't know we were coming no you're supposed to call you're supposed to call the restaurant first. I said, no you're not.

Norma: We should be able to come into any.

Norma: restaurant, we want to.

Norma: yeah they actually thought that's what we should have done, and we were the one messing everybody's party up. Because.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Oh well, let me tell you a story them so two days ago.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): So recently.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): I was flying back from Denver.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): I called the shuttle company they advertise on their website, they were A-D-A accessible, I called the shuttle company and they're like oh yeah we're gonna have that shuttle ready for you, when you get here.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): I got there you know, of course, they only had one shuttle right, not all the shuttles were A-D-A.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): accessible and it was at the airport and the guy decided to take lunch.

Norma: Oh wow.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Right so um you know that you know, this is the reason why and and, yes, I have filed a complaint with the Department of Justice and with the company and flamed them on Twitter and everything else.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): But you know, sometimes you feel like you're you're spending your entire life doing that.

Nadine Vogel: Don't that.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): because nothing was made for us and people rarely think to include us.

Norma: Absolutely.

Nadine Vogel: And it's true and I think you know, because you were talking earlier about employment issues, even if we think of the interview process I would love to hear your comments and your thoughts.

Nadine Vogel: On just the discriminatory practices that set people with disabilities up for failure, right from the interview.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Well, you know, first of all interviews, I think I can only speak from tech because that's where and a little bit from previously being a lawyer interviews tend to be really long blocks of.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Contiguous time you know, sometimes i've heard of blocks of interviews as much as six hours that can be very difficult, if you have a fatigue related disability or if your neuro diverse.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know the biggest problem I see is that.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): People who are doing the interviewing can't put themselves in the position of the person that they're interviewing so they don't understand.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): What a compen compensatory skills or things that people have developed like you know I might be interviewing.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): The the place, I happen to work is a 2.2 miles square campus right so somebody might look at me and my wheelchair and think well I don't know how she's going to get around here.

Nadine Vogel: right.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): um so you know there's there's.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): there's discrimination what wherever you go there's discrimination in how the interviews are set up, you have to request captioning frequently it's not automatically turned on.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): The.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know people who are.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Do or neuro diverse or who have disabilities frequently you know have competence issues from the way that they've been treated in the past, so it's very difficult to come into this.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know projecting confidence and so when when people are ranking the candidates, at the end of the day, unless it's a job, where they're specifically looking for somebody with a disability, you know frequently we're we're ranked.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Lower in the priority list, yet the other issue is many people hide disabilities, yes 70% of disabilities are invisible.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): And there's a great Harvard Business Review study about how that impacts.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Employment in that the employees are much more anxious and much less engaged because they're worried about being outed.

Norma: Yes.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): and i'm making air quotes around that word.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): about having a disability, and then you get into the catch 22 where because you haven't disclosed you can't get accommodations so you can actually get fired.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): For the the performance issues associated with your disabilities, in order to get protected, you have to.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): make it known and ask for accommodations and that's a very difficult step for some people to take and it's a very difficult step.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): For people who grew up outside of countries that have protections for people with disabilities, I work with a lot of people from India, for example, they have a very different concept of disability in India.

Nadine Vogel: Yes.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Then we do in the United States.

Nadine Vogel: Absolutely. I've I've we've done a lot of work in India and you right it's very I mean from the language to the accommodation expectation everything.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Yeah.

Nadine Vogel: very, very different so for those listeners that have yet to disclose to their employer and maybe because they don't even know what they can ask for what's possible.

Nadine Vogel: Right, because we have listeners in different countries, you know, do you have like I hate to say, like the top three or top five or things that you want to make sure folks know they can ask for.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): So accommodations typically break down into three categories there there's processes there's tools and there's facilities right so processes are things like.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You work from home full time or you work six hours a day, instead of eight hours a day um or you get you know your time off from three to five every other Wednesday for some type of medical related appointment.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): tools are, for, if you have dyslexia, for example, you might want grammarly.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): grammarly is a great tool to help people who are writing documents make sure that everything is in the correct order and grammatically correct but it's about $100 and it's not I mean it's cheap for a company it's not necessarily cheap for an individual.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): So there's lots of tools, you can ask for screen readers or magnifier or anything having to do with with software related to disabilities and then finally there's facilities modification so. any facility

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): that was built.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Before the Americans with Disabilities Act, and so, as they are renovating buildings.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): they're adding in electronic door openers they and they added them to the buildings that I use the most frequently so that just you know it's not required under the A-D-A but I was really struggling and.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): And so they did add those to make it easier for me to get in and out of the building and get in and out of the restrooms.

Nadine Vogel: Right right well that that's perfect because I think people really sometimes just are not sure what they can ask for or they're uncomfortable because they don't see anyone else, having that disability right and having that accommodation.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Right well accommodations are supposed to be confidential so.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Unless.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Somebody talks about it.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): you're not necessarily going to know what other people are doing.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): And then the other thing is you don't necessarily get what you asked for you, if you ask for a BMW solution, but it can be solved with a you know Prius you're going to get the Prius right.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): And, but because the point of an accommodation is is solving the problem it's not necessarily getting the most expensive thing available to solve the problem.

Nadine Vogel: Exactly.

Nadine Vogel: Perhaps, so we need to move to a commercial break, but when we come back Sheri I really want to get a little I hate to say controversial, but I really want to start talking about.

Nadine Vogel: Discrimination, as it relates to some of the more recent changes we've seen in our country, such as the undoing of Roe V Wade so for everyone stay tuned don't go anywhere, this is going to be an exciting discussion.

Nadine Vogel: Be right back.

Voiceover:  And now it's time for a commercial break.

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Voiceover:  And now back to our show.

Nadine Vogel: Hello everyone and welcome back to this evenings episode of disabled lives matter we are more than a podcast we are movement, I am here today, as always with my co host Norma Stanley.

Norma: It's great to be here.

Nadine Vogel: Yeah. And today, we are talking with Sheri Byrne Haber and we've been having a fabulous conversation about you know just people with disabilities in the workplace.

Nadine Vogel: Some of the discriminated discriminatory practices that we see all kinds of accommodations folks plans for, but we want to change the topic a little bit.

Nadine Vogel: Um Sheri is the author of a popular medium blog called this This Week in Accessibility and in this blog she summarizes legal cases and issues facing people that implementing accessibility programs.

Nadine Vogel: One of the things and how Sheri, and I actually first engaged with with some of the latest legislative changes to Roe V Wade.

Nadine Vogel: And we know that this is a topic that people are very feel very strongly on both sides um today's conversation is going to be about the impact on women with disabilities so Sheri take it away because I just this just tears at me.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Sure, so you have to start with the baseline that women with disabilities already experience discrimination and healthcare.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): women with disabilities are more likely to be in state funded insurance programs, which are just generally lower levels of quality.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): There is discrimination associated with weight, there is discrimination associated with you know, being a person of color who's a woman with a disability it's all intersectional it all adds up over time.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): But then, in particular with with with the Dobbs decision, which is the one that overturned Roe V Wade.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know there's a couple of really important statistics to understand for women with disabilities, you know, first of all women with disabilities are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted.

Norma: Yup.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Then women without disabilities, especially women with intellectual issues.

Norma: Yes.

Nadine Vogel: Yes.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): mental health issues so that's a pretty significant concern.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): So they're more likely, you know to be pregnant, not through any desire of their's you know some women with disabilities have conditions that they don't want to pass on to their children, so they may have some autosomal dominant.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Genetic condition, where the.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Child is 50/50 whether or not they're going to have the same medical condition that they do, and so that's a significant issue.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): For there but there's all kinds of other side effects as well, so you know we I hear a lot there's this woman on on linkedin that I follow I'm spacing out on her name.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): But every post that she has she says when a black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth, why aren't we doing anything about this well women with disabilities are 11 times more likely to die in childbirth, why aren't we doing something about that.

Nadine Vogel:  Oh, my gosh.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): and then again intersectional a woman of color with a disability is probably even higher than than the 11 times more likely.

Nadine Vogel: Oh my.

Norma: Absolutely.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): women with disabilities are more likely to be in poverty, and so they are not always able to take care of children, even if that was.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Even if they didn't want to end the pregnancy and then you look at the there's all kinds of secondary side effects so there's discussion about how does the Dobbs decision impact.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): In vitro fertilization that's going to directly impact women with them infertility conditions which can be tied to disabilities.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Women with rheumatoid arthritis are already reporting that they can't get their prescriptions refilled.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): One of the drugs that's most commonly used it's the cheapest drug out there, totally safe been on the market for like 30-40 years it's one of the drugs that they use to induce miscarriages.

Nadine Vogel: {gasps.}

Norma: Wow.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): and so pharmacists are refusing to refill it.

Nadine Vogel: Ugh.

Norma: Ugh.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): in the trigger states.

Norma: Domino effect.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Some of them have had these prescriptions for years and years and years, and you know I can speak from personal experience when Covid started.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Two of the drugs that I was on from my rheumatoid arthritis all got confiscated for Covid trials and I had to go off my rheumatoid arthritis drugs cold turkey, and I was miserable, it is not a good place to be.

Norma:  Wow. 

Nadine Vogel: That's that's. 

Norma: That's. staggering I mean, I know that my daughter who's 33 and you know sexual activity is not on her radar but just even getting a G-Y-N exam is challenging.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Sure.

Norma: because she's in a wheelchair, and you know she's just not going to sit for that.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): The doctor's office don't have joists.

Norma: They don't.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): to transfer people they don't have tables that can hold more than 250 pounds, you know it's it's.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know, there are starting to be more regulations that are coming out from the government specifying that but then, yes, the same thing as a disabled bathroom right.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know, you can be compliant again making air quotes and have an accessible bathroom but if there's somebody in there with a stroller and i'm out here with a wheelchair trying not to have an accident that doesn't help me that much so, you know, having a single accessible room.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Is that you know compliant, but not sufficient.

Nadine Vogel: Right, so if wow. what, if anything is being done or can be done behind the scenes, right now, relative to the Dobbs decision in helping folks and the government understand the implications here.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know it's a really good question, I know that some of the national disability organizations are starting you know fundraising campaigns and letter writing campaigns, I've talked to people.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): who have not been able to get their drugs refilled and pointed them to Mark Cuban's website which does sell methotrexate, which is the drugging question.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): and told them look get an out of state prescription get it filled here and then get it mailed to your House now will the state state government of South Carolina eventually pass laws, making even mailing of drugs.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): To their state illegal possibly what happens if you don't have the money to pay for the outside methotrexate and for the outside referral.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): So you know fundraising advocacy campaigns that's that's really where we're at right now, I mean the decision is only slightly over two weeks, and so.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): I think people are still not really understanding that this is more than about you know stopping people from having you know abortions when fetuses are viable, this is, this is about controlling women and controlling women through through all these.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Side effects that I discussed.

Nadine Vogel: Right well, and you know shame on the big pharmas. I mean they should be willing to take a stand and say I mean don't they have any role in this.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know I hadn't thought about it from that perspective um a lot of the drugs in question have been around for a while and so they're generic.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): And and they're not big profit centers I know there's only one manufacturer of the injectable methotrexate because when they had a quality control problem.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Due to a hurricane, all of a sudden, there was a shortage and they asked all the people who were on it, can you switch to the pill form, so that we can use this special injectable.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): For kids with leukemia where the injectable was the only thing that they could take they couldn't take the pills so that's a problem because.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know there's just not not a lot of money in generics, the money is in you know what they're advertising on TV.

Nadine Vogel: Right well you know what I mean so many things bother me.

Nadine Vogel: You know this whole issue you know let's talk let's back it up to Covid right, so when government was pushing you know the Covid vaccine right and people were saying well I don't want to take the vaccine my body my choice blah blah blah, how is this different.

Nadine Vogel: How is this different.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): I don't I can't I can't split that hair, you know I just don't understand the people who can.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): retain the cognitive.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know clash between those two positions.

Nadine Vogel: Right.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Right, you know my body my choice with Covid vaccine and your body my choice.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): with pregnancy.

Nadine Vogel: Right it just. It makes no sense and and and obviously this they're not thinking women with disabilities, because they're not even thinking women in general, but to your point well, first of all, the statistic that you quoted women and with disabilities 11 times more likely to die in childbirth.

Nadine Vogel: I gasped at that.

Norma: yeah.

Nadine Vogel: I just got to that. you know I think of my older daughter, who you know talks about having a child some day she's 31 she has you know all these disabilities and i'm thinking oh my.

Nadine Vogel: gosh now is that because of the quality of the treatment of the level of care that they're getting.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): I don't think it's necessarily tied to that I think it's um you know, women are more likely to have autoimmune conditions, especially women of childbearing age.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): That is linked with blood clots, and so I think a lot of the you know I actually my deaf daughter's third grade teacher died.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): A couple of days after her third child was born from a blood clot that came from an autoimmune condition that she had so I suspect that I suspect, maybe I hope that it's it's not necessarily people deliberately discriminating against us it's more that um you know we we are higher risk.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): in general.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know I have type one diabetes it's very difficult to manage your diabetes when you're pregnant.

Nadine Vogel: Right right oh my gosh that is.

Nadine Vogel: And I also think this issue of you know, women with intellectual disabilities.

Nadine Vogel: Um the you know succumbing to rape and in all of these just awful issues right, much more so than someone who doesn't have an intellectual disability.

Nadine Vogel: You know that what was the situation just recently of the 10 year old that got raped, a 10 year old child and they wouldn't allow her to have an abortion she had to go across state line.

Norma: Yep.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Or the there was a story, a few years back, about a woman.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): I want to say it was in Arizona, who was in a coma.

Norma: And yes, I was just thinking.

Norma: About that yeah.

Norma: yeah she was raped by one of the.

Norma: People who work there.

Norma: yeah she end up getting pregnant and giving birth, you know.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): With no prenatal care so you know that.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You know.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): that's that's another thing you know people with disabilities, we don't like going to doctors, because we do it more than everybody else so.

Nadine Vogel: So so help us here Sheri, as you know, we only really have a couple minutes left for our listeners, who have disabilities for our listeners who don't have disabilities what what kind of guidance should we be giving people to help move the needle and change some of this.

Nadine Vogel: All of this.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): The Dobbs Dobbs did not make abortion illegal.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Right Dobbs said it was up to the States to decide whether or not abortion was legal and then of course we had all these states with trigger laws that said if Roe V Wade got overturned automatically abortion became legal in that state.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): So what people have to do is they have to either work within the confines of their state trying to get out there and elect people who are going to overturn those laws internally with their states or they have to move to States that are are going to protect women's rights.

Nadine Vogel: But that you know the problem is that changes by the day and they think one state is OK, and then you see the needle.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): It can alter over time and it's all about who's in power.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): You got to get out there, and you got to vote if you're if you're to disabled to go to the polls, then you gotta vote, you know you got to register absentee and and vote absentee because without that we've got nothing.

Nadine Vogel: yeah.

Norma: And they're trying to change all those laws also.

Norma: You know how you can actually get the vote in.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Well that's that you know that's that's the group in power, trying to hang on to their power.

Norma: Um, hmm.

Nadine Vogel: but yet resulting in another discriminatory practice.

Norma: Yes.

Nadine Vogel: It right, I mean it kind of just keeps coming back it's like full circle so well.

Nadine Vogel: I hope that all of our listeners that you all heard Sheri you heard the things that we're talking about today and that you will take action on Sheri if someone wants to reach out to you, relative to your blog what's the best way to do that.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): So I just moved my blog to substack and my blog is called Access Ability so.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Those two words um with with the A for ability, instead of the I, which is how it's spelled for accessibility and i've got a fairly unique last name Byrne hyphen Haber so you can find me on linkedin fairly easily as well, where I was just named a top voice for social impact, by the way.

Norma:  Awesome. 

Nadine Vogel: i'm not surprised.

Nadine Vogel: i'm not surprised and.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Well. i'm really glad that linkedin recognized disability, as part of social impact that that was.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): That was.

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): That was my biggest takeaway from that.

Nadine Vogel: And and for our listeners if you're not following Sheri right now go do it, I I have started to, and I think the the points that you make the conversations that you start, just like what we're having here so important, so Sheri. Thank you so very much for joining us.

Norma: Yes. Thank you very much.

Nadine Vogel: and

Nadine Vogel: I wish you the best of luck in.

Nadine Vogel: Everything that you're doing and I would very much like us to stay in touch.

Norma: Yes, please. 

Sheri Byrne-Haber (she/her): Appreciate the invitation and thanks for chatting with me.

Nadine Vogel: Absolutely norma another great episode. Se you on.

Norma: Yes. Thank you again and we just you know, we look forward to bringing you more content like this moving forward so disabled lives matter and don't you ever forget it.

Nadine Vogel: Absolutely. Alright everybody take care bye bye.

Closing comment:  [Music playing in background.] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of disabled lives matter. We look forward to seeing you next Thursday.  Have a great week!

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