Protecting the Innocents: People with Disabilities and Physician-Assisted Dying

Protecting the Innocents: People with Disabilities and Physician-Assisted Dying Nightingale Alliance® Euthanasia Opposition - Resources, End of Life Alternatives

Protecting the Innocents: People with Disabilities and Physician-Assisted Dying
By Anita SilversAnita Silvers, Protecting the Innocents: People With Disabilities and Physician-Assisted Dying, 166 W. J. MED. 407 (1997). At its core, the anxiety of the disability community is fueled by distrust of medical professionals' commitment to the value of the lives of people with disabilities. Again, the ones most agitated by the thought of increased access to death are those best supported by personal care services. For instance, describing his satisfying life in a pleasant apartment in Berkeley as evidence that quadriplegics have no reason to die, Mark O'Brien doesn't mention that he is supported and cared for, that the breathing equipment on which he depends must be acquired and maintained, and that attendants must be secured and compensated. His achievement in organizing this support is at least as remarkable as the successes he reports in his column (he has a girlfriend, publishes poetry, writes for newspapers). But to extract the level of care he needs, O'Brien must convince others that furnishing it is the preferable course not just for him but also for those who provide his care. Arguably, if society's options for relating to Mark O'Brien were not limited to two-supporting his current self-directed life or relegating him to subjugated dependence-the cost-effectiveness of his independent life might be less evident. Society may choose to sustain people with serious disabilities in misery or in a way in which they thrive. Of the two options, suffering or flourishing, the latter is desirable and humane. But adding a third alternative-the possibility of not sustaining persons with disabilities at all-changes the options, weakening the "flourish" position with which people with disabilities leverage a higher level of care. This third option diffuses responsibility for sustaining those with disabilities. The need to care for people with disabilities can be discharged by one of two means: people without disabilities may help people with disabilities become self-supporting, or, if the former course is rejected as too difficult, people with disabilities may "volunteer" to erase their very presence. Which choice will seem preferable to people without disabilities? Would it be the option that requires their active commitment to improve the social participation of a person with a disability? Or would it be the option in which they need do nothing but induce the person with a disability to solve the problem for them?
Posted on June 26, 2004.