Send this news story to a friend
Disabled People Need Reason to Live, Not “Right” to Die, Says Campaigner : 4th Mar 10
A leading campaigner for the rights of disabled people in the UK has warned that vulnerable people need support and encouragement—not help to commit suicide. Phil Friend, chairman of the Royal Association for Disability Rights, cautioned that any change in the law on assisted suicide would “create a class of people from whom legal protection can be taken away”.
Instead of changing the laws, he said, “we should ensure the individuals and their families are given all the support possible”. He added that “Their quality of life would then be enhanced, making assisted suicide a less attractive option”.
Writing in the London Times, Mr Friend also warned that recent media coverage “threatens to skew public opinion dangerously in favour of a change in the law”. The disability campaigner noted that disabled people are often dependent upon others, which could endanger them if assisted suicide ever became legal. He explained that “they are often placed in situations where other people have a great deal of power and influence over them, and a lot of unsupervised access.
To exempt individuals from legal scrutiny if they assist the person in their care to commit suicide would leave already vulnerable people at greater risk”.
The expert’s comments come in the wake of a series of high-profile stories about assisted suicide in the media. Author Terry Pratchett recently gave a controversial BBC lecture in which he called for the creation of assisted suicide “tribunals”.
But Mr Friend dismissed this idea, saying, “Setting up tribunals that grant a licence to kill opens the door to abuse—what if the person changes their mind, but the person assisting them doesn’t? Presuming friends and relatives of terminally ill and disabled people will always act in their best interests is naïve and dangerous”.
Meanwhile, Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, said that we must ignore celebrity campaigns for assisted suicide, and instead listen to the voices of disabled people and the silent majority. The prelate declared, “I would rather listen to the voices of disabled people than to the voices of celebrities or the voices of 1,000 people in an opinion poll”. Catholic Ireland. February 10/13.
Recent Topics
- No Abortion Referendum, Says Harney
- In Final Report, CPA Claims More Older Women Facing Crisis Pregnancies
- HFEA To Be Abolished
- Sex Education Should Promote Marriage - Ofsted
- Deluge of Complaints Leads ASA to Investigate Marie Stopes
- French Senator Pushes Euthanasia Bill
- Criminalising Underage Sex is Constitutional, Court Finds
- Senator Queries Cost of Civil Partnerships
- End of life, Quality of Death
- UK Government Divided over Support for Marriage
- Oxford Team to Use iPS Cells to Study Parkinsons