Content Warning: Death, Filicide
Dylan Freeman was a 10-year-old autistic boy, described by his father as “a beautiful, bright, inquisitive, and artistic child.” A young boy who had his entire life ahead of him, he made the news after being found dead in his home in west London, allegedly murdered at the hands of his own mother, Olga Freeman.
This horrific, tragic story eventually broke and made its rounds on Twitter, where it garnered incredibly different reactions. Members of the disability community were devastated, upset, and angry, mourning for Dylan. Autistic Twitter user @autisticats described his death as “tragic, unjust, and completely avoidable.” Meanwhile, instead of sympathizing with Dylan, many abled Twitter users instead sympathized with his caretaker. In a now-deleted tweet, conservative journalist Allison Pearson wrote that while we currently don’t know all the details of what happened, “what we do know is lockdown has been a nightmare for many parents of disabled children with no external help.” Other users, such as @CWallop, called his mother’s alleged actions “completely desperate,” or automatically assuming and attributing it to the mother being under a lot of stress and pressure from being Dylan’s sole caretaker during the pandemic. While there has been an outpouring of support from abled people for Dylan’s mother and caretaker, his right to live has been ignored because autistic people are classified as burdens.
Disabled children are murdered so often, that there is an entire day designated to mourn them. The Disability Day of Mourning takes place every year on March 1st. While ignored by abled people, this day is when the disabled community comes together to mourn the deaths of disabled children that die at the hands of a family member. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) has even created an Anti-Filicide Toolkit, which includes an explanation of the cycle of disabled filicide.
Every few months or so, disabled people have to see the same stories, just with different names, ages, and disabilities, pop up and make their rounds on the internet. And when it does, it’s not just upsetting and angering, it’s downright traumatizing, because every single day of our lives, we’re already told that we’re worth less than disabled people, that we’re burdens. We live in a world where movies like Me Before You exist, where a disabled person killing themselves so their caretaker can “live” is seen as romantic. We hear people pity us, tell us they’d rather be dead than disabled. But then a story like this comes along, where a disabled child is found dead at the hands of their parent. And each time, we see abled people excuse the child’s murder and sympathize with the parent, proclaiming that it’s understandable, that disabled children must just be so hard to deal with, so hard to love. We see the murder described as a “mercy killing,” and the parent be charged with a minimal sentence, if they’re even sentenced at all.
But the most draining part of it all is that abled people just don’t seem to care. There’s outrage when an abled child is murdered by their parent, but when it’s a disabled child, there’s excuses and silence. What’s the difference? Abled people see abled children’s and parents’ lives as more important, more worthy than disabled children’s lives. It’s completely and utterly exhausting to constantly have to fight whether it’s’ arguing with abled people or just plain surviving, to be seen as worthy of living. And we shouldn’t have to. “Don’t kill us pretty please” should not be so much to ask. And yet, for some reason, it is.
Being silent is being complicit. Abled people must hold a mirror up, ask themselves what they believe in, and defend it. It is impossible to both excuse a woman murdering her own child simply because he’s autistic, and say you care about autistic people. And abled people cannot ignore it when one of these filicides takes place, because choosing to ignore it and keep scrolling is the first step to normalizing it. Liking and retweeting a single tweet is not enough. Abled people must speak out, and amplify our voices. Not only can they use their privilege to help stop these unjustifiable murders, but they have a moral obligation to.
When this story, like all of the others, eventually fades from the public consciousness and becomes just another entry on the Disabled Day of Mourning website, we all must learn from it and remember that disabled people are not worth any less than abled people. We have every right to grow up, to be happy, and to live that abled people do. Our murders should not be excused, and our murderers should not go unscathed. Yet the heartbreaking fact of the matter is, no matter what sentence Dylan’s mother receives, there’s no possible way for him to truly receive justice.
