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In a recent paper, “Why Does the State Have the Right to Control Immigration?”, Sarah Song provides a defense of the right of liberal democratic states to control movement, especially in-bound movement, of people across their borders. Against arguments for border control that are based a) in the need to preserve cultural/national identity, b) on an analogy to the freedom of association inherent to personal relationships, and c) on an analogy to the right of exclusion inherent to property rights—all three of which she rightly finds insufficient in justifying the state’s power over its points of entry—Song presents a defense of border control centered in the “democratic self-determination of a people.” I contend that Song likewise falls short of justifying this particular state power, chiefly because such justification would require an account of how this power is to be “weighed against the migrant’s claim to enter”—a claim that lies, by definition, outside the scope of her conception of democratic self-determination, and which Song therefore sees, incorrectly I argue, as outside the scope of her argument.

While the COVID-19 global pandemic disrupted and endangered the health and welfare of people all over the world, there is one social group that has faced special discrimination in the aftermath of this world-wide catastrophe: people with disabilities. Within the United States, various response plans in Washington, Alabama, Kansas and Tennessee place the lives of people with disabilities in danger by rationing the care available.[1] Similarly, medical professionals in Europe and Asia have had to make difficult decisions when choosing whom to help when medical resources are so scarce.[2] Furthermore, children with special needs, such as those for autism or Down’s Syndrome, have had their services limited or curtailed within the United States.[3] Finally, workers with health conditions have been laid off or fired because their employers did not desire or were unable to pay for their needed health leaves.[4] The aim of this paper is to address these injustices by considering Iris Marion Young’s five faces of oppression – exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence - affecting people with disabilities in our post-pandemic world.[5] I argue further that people with disabilities have been silenced by a fearful public concerning these matters and as a result, have suffered an epistemic injustice. I conclude by providing a new model for embodiment as a better guide for inclusion, care and differentiated solidarity.

We will consider the duties of the affluent to those who are most disadvantaged.