Bonnie Liltz Found Dead in Apparent Suicide - A Predictable Tragedy

Bonnie Liltz

On Saturday November 25^th, Bonnie Liltz was found dead in her apartment, the cause an apparent suicide. Her death is a blot on the consciences of all of us living in Illinois. In 2015, Bonnie Liltz administered a fatal overdose to her 28- year old daughter Courtney, who was severely mentally retarded, mute, unable to walk, and wearing diapers. Bonnie Liltz suffered from cancer and was terminally ill. She feared what would happen to her daughter after her death. For her crime, she was sentenced to four years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. After being sent home for medical treatment, she was ordered back to prison. Rather than return there, she killed herself. Why was she sent to prison in the first place?  

Bonnie Liltz was a poster child for everything wrong with Illinois' inadequate services for the developmentally disabled. Her fears were grounded in a tragic reality. Having worked as a social worker with the developmentally disabled for many years, I heard this fear expressed by many parents. Those parents' fears were realistic, also. “Let her die the day after I do,” they would say. It often sounded like a litany. I encouraged them to put their adult children on waiting lists for housing so they could choose a good place while they were still on this Earth. The variation in quality of places was huge. Without someone to advocate for their children, they could end up in a very inadequate facility where they might even be mistreated or abused. “Their sister (or brother) will take care of her (him).” But what if they wouldn’t. What if there was no other family member to take over.

While I’m not advocating mercy killing, I understand why Bonnie Liltz felt she had no other alternative. She was a single mom and Courtney was her only child. She had no one on whom she could depend to advocate for her child’s well-being. She couldn’t count on the state of Illinois and she was desperate.

Illinois, while somewhere in the middle on per capita income, is 50^th on per capita spending for developmentally disabled adults. Disabled Illinois children are protected by federal law guaranteeing them an education through age 21. After that, they can be on waiting lists to obtain adult services such as group homes, intermediate care facilities, and community based care for years. At present, about 20,000 adults are on waiting lists for residential facilities and community day services some of them having waited for years. As bad as this always was, in the past two years, it has gotten worse.

Without a budget for two years, Illinois had stopped paying allotted promised funding to many agencies serving the developmentally challenged. Without money to pay their staff, many of these agencies had to close. The list of resources has grown shorter. The waiting lists have grown longer. The wait for services has become interminable. How many parents in Bonnie Liltz’ predicament will resort to her solution?

We in Illinois could spend more on resources for the disabled or we can continue as we’ve been doing. There would be more Bonnies and Courtneys, but we could go on avoiding paying taxes to help the most vulnerable in Illinois. It’s up to us to decide what kind of society we want to have.   

     

And Then They Came For Me

“AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME” is a powerful exhibit about the internment of Japanese-American citizens living on the west coast of the United States during World War II.

We were fortunate to get to see it. On the second floor of the gallery, a documentary about the internment is shown each hour. There are also photographs and artifacts from the internment.

While I knew that the internment took place, I didn’t know until seeing this film about some of the worst abuses. I didn’t know that the people being herded into these subhuman conditions were given a loyalty oath test. Those who didn’t pass it were put in maximum security prisons along with their young children, some of them babies. I didn’t know that the government forbid photography of the barbed wire fences censoring the news coverage that came out of the camps. Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams were hired to take pictures. While they were given many restrictions, they managed to take some pictures that showed the humanity and the tragedy of this blot on American’s conscience. A Japanese man who was interned smuggled a banned camera into the internment camp. Many of these heretofore unseen photos are shown in the gallery.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan issued a half-hearted apology to the Japanese-Americans who were interned and each family was given $20,000. This hardly compensates for the five years of these peoples’ lives that they’ll never get back. It didn’t compensate for the businesses and farms that were taken from them. When the Japanese returned to their homes after the War, their businesses were gone or unclaimable in most cases. They continued to be taunted and discriminated against. What is $20,000 in the face of such loss?

Most Americans don’t learn about the Japanese internment in history classes. Many of us, have never heard of it. Fortunately, we have this exhibit to tell us or remind us.

In this time of talk of Muslim registries and deporting Mexican-Americans, we would do well to remember what can happen when hysteria and bigotry carry the day. We need to look back and vow that we won’t allow this to happen again. While FDR is in large part responsible for this, it couldn’t have happened without the passive consent of the American people.

“And Then They Came for Me” is also the title of a poem written just after World War II by the pastor Martin Niemoller.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

“And Then They Came for Me” is free and open to the public and has been shown at the Alphawood Gallery at 2401 North Halsted Street in Chicago since June 29^th of this year and will close on November 19^th. This is short notice but if you have time to see this exhibit in its closing days, it’s a must see.

The exhibit is traveling to the New York International Center of Photography and will open there on January 26, 2018.

Back in the Land of Deja Vu

Ever since John Adams ignored his wife Abigail’s entreaty to “remember the ladies” when writing the United States Constitution, we women have been trying to correct his and his colleagues’ omission. It would seem that now is a good time – better late than never – to finally get it right.

With that in mind, I participated in a phone bank to belatedly get the state of Illinois to ratify the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment). “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Getting My ERA Campaign Buttons Out of Mothballs and Putting Them to Work

As I got to the phone bank, I couldn’t help wondering why this one sentence is so difficult for the Illinois Legislature to pass. In 1974, we were living in Ohio and I participated in a group that went to Columbus to demand its passage. It was ratified there.

When we moved to Illinois a year later, I got the bad news that Illinois was the only state north of the Mason-Dixon line that had failed to ratify the ERA. Several years followed during which I joined marches and picket lines and wrote letters and attended debates. One of the most memorable times was going with several women to attend a debate at Illinois State University  between Phyllis Schafly and Karen DeCrow, then president of NOW. We had brought fliers advertising a rally in Chicago and I borrowed a knife from the student center to open the box they were in. By the time the debate was over, the student center was closed. I still have that knife in my kitchen drawer serving as a reminder that women in Illinois and throughout the United States are still denied equal citizenship. It's long since worn out its welcome.

When the deadline to pass the ERA came and went without Illinois doing the right thing, we who had advocated for its ratification hugged each other good-bye and said that we’d have to leave this unfinished business to our granddaughters. Now there’s a movement in Illinois to try again to get the ERA ratified here with the hope that if we have 38 states ratifying it, Congress will find a way to make it the next amendment. The state of Nevada ratified the ERA at the beginning of 2017. We now have 36 states and only need two more.

When we failed to pass the ERA in 1978, I didn’t have any children yet and couldn’t even imagine having grandchildren. Forty years later, I have three beautiful granddaughters. I don’t want to leave this fight to them. I want to leave them a better world than that - one in which they have complete equality. 

So I make phone calls and rally and do whatever else needs to be done. Forty years ago, I did this for me. Now I do it for them. If this is not the fight you want to leave to your children and grandchildren, there are phone banks needing people. There are pro-equality candidates that need our support. Emily's List always needs donations. Let’s get to work and get it done this time.