Several dozen disabled people were forcibly removed and arrested by police during a protest over the a Senate health care bill outside of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office on Thursday.
McConnell unveiled the bill the same day. The Republican-led effort was largely seen as negatively impacting some of the most vulnerable Americans.
The protesters shouted chants like “don’t touch Medicaid, save our liberty.” The demonstration was organized by ADAPT, a national disability rights organization, CNN reported.
“The American Health Care Act caps and significantly cuts Medicaid which will greatly reduce access to medical care and home and community based services for elderly and disabled Americans who will either die or be forced into institutions,” ADAPT organizer Bruce Darling, who took part in the protest, said in a statement.
Capitol Police took 43 protesters into custody after some of them removed themselves from their wheelchairs as part of the “die-in” demonstration, according to a statement cited by several news outlets.
Here's how it unfolded:
As part of the "die-in," some protesters like this man removed themselves from their wheelchairs.
After being accused of blocking the hallway outside Sen. Mitch McConnell's office, protesters were removed by police.
Some were escorted out in their wheelchairs.
Others were forcibly carried out.
A visually impaired man using a white cane was led away.
Stephanie Woodward, of Rochester, New York, who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, is removed by police.
A protester is escorted out in a wheelchair.
This woman, whose condition was not immediately known, was carried out.
The bottoms of this man's feet are seen as police carry him away.
A woman is led away by Capitol Police in her wheelchair.
Wearing an ADAPT shirt, this woman raises her arms triumphantly as she's wheeled away.
