Without trying to get started on another wild rant on this topic I offer the following thoughts below for those that may not have seen them before.
*** This is NOT a comment on the Schiavo case or comparing Terri to my or any other person with a disability's situation. It is a comment on what could, and has in the past happened related to the idea that it is merciful or loving to kill those who we feel may have a less than normal "quality" of life.
purplesofa made this observation:
I was talking with a friend of mine about the quality of life issue........and we got to the point we were saying.......Well, He's lost my legs...........lets do away with him. He is blind .....he surely does not want to live. How do we know she does not savor this quality of life for her. We all make comprimises.
Here is a link to an article (in pdf) I wrote:
Speaking for the "Unfit"
A Commentary on Disability, the Holocaust and the Modern Eugenics Movement.
For those who say that it could never happen here in the USA in our time....
The American Journal of Psychiatry Published a debate on the "Ethics of Killing Children with Severe Disabilities" in which one individual stated...(emphasis added by me)
"I believe when the defective child will have reached the age of five years - and on the application of his guardians - that the case should be considered under law by a competent medical board; then it should be reviewed twice more at four-month intervals; then, if the board, acting, I repeat, on the applications of the guardian of the child, and after three examinations of the defective who has reached the age of five or more, should decide that that defective has no future or hope of one; then I believe it is a merciful and kindly thing to relieve that defective - often tortured and convulsed, grotesque and absurd, useless and foolish and entirely undesireable - from the agony of living"
Relieve the defective who is entirely undesireable from the agony of living......it just makes me feel physically ill.
When I've posted these thoughts and comments here before I've been told to not worry about it, some people are ignorant, don't let it get to me, they don't know any better...but how would you feel if people continually said your life was worthless, abnormal, less than human, of little or no value or actually no life at all...better dead than disabled ?
I worry about the continued move toward normalizing mercy killing as a means of controlling quality of life. But then I'm biased aren't I ? I just don't want to find myself or my disabled culture being pushed toward extinction based on misguided beliefs and stereotypes by well meaning people who are uncomfortable dealing with the cripples because we're not normal enough for them.
just another bitter a**hole in a wheelchair