One of the most prominent disability rights activists and attorneys in the United States died because of actions by her insurance company, UnitedHealthCare. Her sister, Courtney Lucas, stated that Carrie Ann Lucas died of complications from septic shock, and her family’s Facebook post stated that Carrie Ann died because UnitedHealthCare denied her specific necessary medications in order to save $2,000. Lucas was forced to take a less effective medication. She had adverse reactions to this, leading to many health issues and eventually her death. Carrie Ann Lucas lived a truly incredible life and improved the lives of many people with disabilities across the country and her state of Colorado, and it’s truly shameful and disgusting that her life was cut short to save $2,000.
Carrie Ann Lucas, in her own words, was a power wheelchair and ventilator user. She had mitochondrial myopathy, a disease that causes muscular problems. She also had low vision, severe hearing loss and was unable to speak near the end of her life due to her medical issues as a result of being denied her necessary medication.
Lucas spent her life advocating for the rights of others. Lucas was a middle school science teacher in Saipan, an island in the North Mariana Islands, before she decided to become a minister, earning her master’s of divinity degree in 1999 at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. Lucas then went on to law school at the University of Denver, where she graduated in 2005. She was inspired by her fight to win custody of her niece, Heather, who also has disabilities. Lucas was initially viewed as unable to take care of Heather because of Lucas’ disabilities, but she was eventually able to win custody of her niece. Lucas went on to adopt three more children who also had disabilities and found Disabled Parents Rights, of which she was the executive director. This nonprofit fought discrimination against parents with disabilities. Her fight was realized when last year Colorado law changed so that diasiblity could not be the sole basis for denying custody to that parent.
Lucas wrote frequently of the discrimination that she faced as a parent with disabilities to children with disabilities. Lucas’ blog Disability Pride brought light to the access violations people with disabilities face and the specific discrimination of ableism faced by those with disabilities, as well as focusing on parenting children with disabilities. Lucas was an incredible writer, and her blog is a wormhole into her distinct humor, the challenges and the triumphs she faced, her journey as an adoptive parent, a woman with disabilities and a disability rights attorney. Lucas once wrote on her blog, to the common question she received asking how she could be a mother, that, “Oh, I see, you can’t fathom some crippled chick could be a mom? (queue questioner turning bright red) Well, I manage to love, feed, clothe, and house them, and I haven’t forgotten them while shopping at Walmart, so they let me keep them.”
Lucas’ fight against discrimination extended beyond parenting rights. According to The New York Times, Lucas successfully made several businesses follow accessibility policies in line with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Lucas was also a lead plaintiff in a suit against Kmart that was settled in 2006 that led to $13 million in damages repaid to shoppers and requiring to bring its stores in compliance with the ADA. This was the biggest payout in a disabilities case at the time. In her blog, Lucas made fun of the businesses that did not follow these policies saying, “If I had a nickel for all the times I have pushed for access at an inaccessible business, and been told ‘we have never had a wheelchair user here.’ No kidding, we can’t get in the door!”
Lucas was not always successful in her fight, but her determination to support the dignity and rights of disabled people should not be ignored or forgotten. Lucas fought against allowing doctor-assisted suicide in Colorado as a member of Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group that felt that doctor-assisted suicide suggested that people with disabilities didn’t have a life worth living. Doctor-assisted suicide ended up being legalized in Colorado. Lucas also was arrested for protesting the Republicans’ 2017 plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act through a 58 hour sit in in Senator Cory Gardner’s Denver office. This plan would have “reduced Medicaid funding and eliminated services that make it possible for people with disabilities to live independently.” Lucas once said, “As disabled people, we are always addressing the issue of how society devalues our lives and experiences.” She spent her life addressing this issue, from being a member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado’s director’s board to working disability rights cases as part of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition.
Carrie Ann Lucas will be dearly missed by the people whose lives she touched through her activism efforts, her children, her partner, Dr. Kimberly Jackson, and the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC). CREEC honored Lucas in 2016 for her work and stated about her passing that “Carrie may have been the only wheelchair-using Latina with a bumper sticker reading ‘just another disabled lesbian for Christ,’ dressed in camo, driving her trak-chair into the wilderness in search of the perfect photo.” Carrie Ann Lucas was only 47.