My colleague Bob Vogel sent me a disturbing article about how some opponents to Texas attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott are questioning whether the man really is a wheelchair-using paraplegic. They’re calling themselves “Wheelchair Truthers,” possibly as a counterbalance to the “Birthers” who refuse to believe President Obama is an American no matter how many times he releases his birth certificate. And their claim that Abbott is not really a paraplegic is just as ridiculous and just as rooted in prejudice as the Birther nonsense.

The article, “Wheelchair Truthers now Demand Texas Republican ‘Prove He is Paraplegic,’” is published on The Daily Caller, which is to conservatives what the Daily Kos is to progressives. That is to say, there’s an obvious bias in the articles and so it’s not surprising that a little bit of research showed the “Truther” story is, indeed, being blown out of proportion. In fact, there’s some evidence that Abbott’s supporters are fanning the flames, as reported in “Group Claims Video Shows Davis Backers Mocking Abbott,” an article in The Texas Tribune.

But the fact remains there are claims to blow out of proportion and there are flames to fan. Somewhere, some folks in Texas are so lost in their ableism that they can’t believe a wheelchair user can do all Abbott’s done or be all Abbott is....

Another part of these so-called “Wheelchair Truthers” claim is that no man with an injury as severe as Abbott’s could possibly father a child. This uneducated and ignorant assertion has me more incensed than the other! Are the people making these claims fertility specialists? Have they taken the time to listen to the stories of the men who sat in those offices and conferred with those doctors and done the things that some must do to father children? Obviously not, or they’d not only know better, but they’d show some respect for the man and his family.