Should persons with disabilities live? This article nails it…

June 14, 2011 at 10:39 AM (Duty to Die Movement) (Assisted Suicide, Disability, Duty to Die movement, Euthanasia, Impairment, Jack Kevorkian, Not Dead Yet, Persons with Disabilities)

Jack Kevorkian has left the planet.   I’ll say no more, on the grounds of  “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’

Maybe the Duty to Die advocates will be quieter now.

Via Stephen Drake and “Not Dead Yet.”

‘Even though the article is from 1993, it’s even more relevant now,as the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps,” ideology is even more in evidence.

My favorite quote from this?

If people with disabilities know that they can rely on someone to get them out of bed in the morning, maybe more of us would find a productive reason to do so.

If we can be either conventionally “productive,” by working, or add something to our society by our talents, or by volunteering…um breaking news:  We still have to be here to do it.  With correct caregiving the productivity of persons with disabilities, working or not, would skyrocket, and at the same time the cost of the caregiving would have some offset because less medical expense would accrue, since you’re less likely to suffer from depression, and less likely to have medical issues  or accidents that cause further injury with proper care.

Not to mention the fact that nursing home care costs as much as twice what home care does.  (and yes, I’ll keep harping on this til the Tea Party, the Republicans, the Democrats,  and all the other smaller divisions in  all fifty states cop to the fact that this would save them a ****load of money without cutting benefits, and pass legislation modeled on community choice.)

Instead of having the worries and fears over being abandoned and getting sicker, over finances, over relatives that *want* us to do this… drive us to consider assisted suicide, we’d be considering our lives, and what’s up tomorrow.

As Not Dead Yet and other advocates for persons with disabilites to, ( oh, I don’t know, keep breathing?) often say:

Consideration of assisted suicide cannot be framed as  irrational for able-bodied people, but at the same time rational for persons with disabilities or our elders.

That is a falsehood with dire implications.

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