A conversation about citizenship rights and obligations (Leader October 2) would indeed make a refreshing change from the sort of dangerously muddled thinking on disability we heard during the recent Mary and Jodie case, where killing means kindness and death equals life. The Human Rights Act, as flawed a piece of legislation as any other (e.g. the Disability Discrimination Act), at least adds weight to the view that every life, however it is lived, is precious and can be OK, if not beautiful. Therefore, the temptation to prescribe death as the remedy for "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment", even, or especially, when the victim cries out for it, must be resisted vehemently (Letters October 3). For more than 20 years, disabled people's organisations have been arguing, with some success (e.g. the Direct Payments Act) that it isn't the need for assistance in carrying out bodily functions that removes dignity. Rather, it is the way that such assistance is (or is not) provided that dehumanises and degrades. We've been demanding the right to choice and control over our own lives and bodies and now, with the help of the Human Rights Act, we may get it. At last, we have the means with which to challenge the dominant and economically convenient view that a disabled life is a life not worth living. Deborah Sowerby, disability equality consultant. debbie@aspirations.org.uk |