Hello Void.
My contribution, though I might fail on the brevity part.
Disability and suffering are not the same thing. However, very severe disability can lead to profound suffering for some individuals. Individuals with severe, progressive conditions should have the right to clearly decide what constitutes unbearable suffering, and when and how very severe disability might impact that threshold. It goes without saying that social justice initiatives that create a more inclusive world are important and will, ideally, creates fewer situations where disability is viewed as synonymous with suffering.
Hi DaisyJane,
Disability rights groups feel this decision by the nature of it including permanent conditions not just terminal illness fails at justice and inclusion.
If, for example, feeding tubes are seen as common reasons to want to die instead of demanding quality of life care - such as a care aide or personal assistant - this puts the lives of those living with feeding tubes at a lesser value. If we look at disability lik race or gender - it would be like women wanting to die because they are women and life must be too intolerable - and those women who don't want to die but to live equally with all that might entail, are then seen as lesser. That would never be seen as acceptable in a just society. It's hard because as the articles on bioethics I posted above point out - bioethics and disability rights are two seperate languages.
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