Emily Halsall, Membership & Communications Officer writes today's blog post:
"After a two week holiday, I returned to work to the news that Not Dead Yet UK, a network of disabled people who actively oppose any changes to assisted suicide and assisted dying legislation, have launched a ‘Resistance Campaign’ calling on MPs to sign a Charter which its key asks include:
• A recognition that disabled and terminally ill people should have the same legal protection as everyone else;
• A commitment to support disabled and terminally ill constituents to access the health, social and other services that they need;
• A commitment to oppose any change to the current law, which makes assisted suicide illegal.
Without getting in semantics, I think we can safely assume that alongside opposing assisted suicide (when assistance to die is provided to somebody who is not dying) the campaign is also calling on MPs to oppose the change in the law that we are calling for, on ‘assisted dying’ (when assistance to die is provided to somebody who is terminally ill and mentally competent).
The campaign was launched in Westminster by Baroness Campbell in an attempt “to highlight disabled and terminally ill people’s fears” of any change in legislation. Baroness Campbell talks often of the fear disabled people have of a change in the law on assisted dying including in a debate in the House of Lords last July: “[Assisted dying] advocates are people who fear disability and terminal illness...assisted dying is not supported by the very people it would benefit.”
In fact, opinion polls have consistently shown support from disabled people for assisted dying legislation. A British Social Attitudes survey from 2007 found that 75% of disabled people support assisted dying for terminally ill people, a Disability Rights Commission poll in 2003 found 60% of disabled respondents to be in favour of a change in the law, and a YouGov poll in 2004 found that disabled people were equally likely to support assisted dying as non-disabled people.
In light of such opinion polls it seems that in fact it is the ‘Resistance Campaign’, rather than our campaign, that is not supported by the very people it represents."
3 comments:
Emily says that public opinion supports assisted dying. I am proud to be a disabled person resisting a change in the law and I am happy to buck the trend of popular thinking.
Lots of people in the high street, (shops, banks, supermarkets and hotels) seem to get their liberal knickers in a twist when I expect equal access to good and services, to enter a building by the front door etc.. maybe its the same people who dont want to serve me coffee that now want to give me an early ejection from this world.
When I talk about inclusion I am not popular, but then again neither were early campaigners in the anti-slavery trade.
There is a massive body of disability organisations that support my view, including RADAR. Guess Emily is not there to assist disabled people campaigning for a life worth living.
Tracey, to suggest that disability rights and assisted dying are incompatible is grossly unfair to all those who campaign for a change in the law.
Dignity in Dying does not advocate helping disabled people to end their lives, but rather terminally ill, mentally competent adults who feel their suffering has become unbearable in the last few weeks or days of their life. A distinction that the majority of people can make and agree with, including disability rights activists such as Lord Ashley and Lord Low who have long been supporters of Dignity in Dying.
On a personal level I have experience of disability in my family and am committed to championing disability rights. I previously campaigned with a leading disability rights organisation and I continue to campaign for equal access to services and social inclusion outside of a work setting. However, having also experienced death in my personal life, I am convinced of the need for safeguarded assisted dying for dying adults who are suffering unbearably at the end of life and wish to take control of the timing and manner of their own death.
The very premise of assisted dying is choice and autonomy, the very same premise of the disability rights movement. In opposing assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults, you deny choice and autonomy to another group of people, simply on the basis that you do not want such a choice.
Disabled people have rights just as anyone else see article > http://www.deaforblinddating.com/index.php?page=articles
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