Disabled Peoples Equal Rights To Life 

Over the past decade or so attacks on disabled peoples equal right to life has increased through the rise of the assisted dying and eugenics movement.  This is because non disabled people see their  lives are more valuable than those who are disabled.    This is clearly illustrated through NHS and Primary trust's healthcare decision making policies, lack of support to assist people with health conditions to have a good quality of life together with a lack of legislation which gives equal legal protection for safe-guarding disabled and non disabled people lives.UKDPC has supported the Not Dead Yet Campaign  on various campaigns and spoken out openly against any attacks of disabled peoples rights through taking part in relevant debates, issuing press and policy statements when such issues arise. 

 

Assisted Dying For Terminally Ill Bill 2005

The Lord Joffey’s  Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Bill would allow doctors to administer drugs which would kill a terminally ill patient on his or her request.  UKDPC along with Not Dead Yet secured a memorable victory, where on the rare occasions, the House of Lords voted out a Bill at second reading stage, and therefore prevented it going onto further debate and into the House of Commons for Members of Parliament consideration.       This Bill is dangerous because it gives disabled people the legal right to die before they even have a legal right to life.  UKDPC does not see a need to legalize assisted dying as this would increase the pressure on disabled people to consider this as an option where health and social care is being rationalised.   

     

Assisted Dying cases and criminal law

The Homicide law (murder law) prohibits the killing of another person which can carry a life sentence on conviction.  However, mitigating circumstances for mercy killing can turn a defendant’s murder into a manslaughter conviction which may carry no jail sentence.  There have been a number of high profile cases, Andrew Wragg and Gillian March coming before the criminal courts where family members have killed their loved ones to die.   Whilst all have admitted to ‘mercy killing’, the judges on each occasion have not issued a jail sentence which we would have expected if the person was non disabled rather than disabled.    This sends the wrong message, that it is just okay to kill disabled people when they become ill or feel burdensome on the family and a society as a whole   Judges are too easily giving out suspended sentences which really amounts to no real punishment instead of a full prison sentence.   The Law Commission has published proposals on reforming the law on murder (homicide) which the Home Office are currently considering.   

 

Beginning of life issues

Some scientists do work looking at what makes a person disabled from a medical model point of view. This means looking at what it is about a disabled person’s body or brain that makes them different from what the scientists count as ‘normal’. One thing they look at is how you can tell if a baby is going to be different from what they count as ‘normal’ before it is born. There are rules around what sort of things scientists can do to look into this question and what doctors can do with what the scientists find out.

Rules about what is right or wrong for scientists and doctors to do shapes the whole way that society views what it means to be human and what value life has. For example, tests into certain impairments build up an idea that people with these impairments are different and not normal. The idea that parents would want to be able to test to make sure they were not going to have a baby with a certain impairment suggests that there is something wrong with people with that impairment. If there is something wrong with a person then they are not as valuable as other people. The idea that parents can stop a baby form being born because it will be born with a certain impairment means that people with that impairment have less right to life than other people. These kind of ideas shape society’s attitudes towards disabled people.

This is happening with the Human and Fertilisation and Embryology Authority who have been asked to approve applications to remove embryos with conditions such as having a squint or autism.    The Government has published a draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill  ,  which would make it unlawful for doctors to give preference to disabled over non disabled embryos.   This means that non disabled embryos and babies must be treated more favourably and better than those who would be born disabled.  

The Government has now published the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill containing all the Eugenics principles as expected whereby couples wanting / needed assisted reproduction will be required to give preference to non disabled over disabled embryos if undergoing embryo screening. This follows on from the Abortion Act 1967 where disabled and non disabled fetuses are not treated equally under the law as termination time limits are different from the two, 24 and to birth.   Campaign groups and networks are using the bill as an opportunity to get equal legal status for both disabled and non-disabled embryos and fetuses for the former and later.    UKDPC is supporting the Not Dead Yet Campaign to raise these important issues.

      Not Dead Yet’s Campaign  

UKDPC speaks out against attempts to undermine disabled peoples equal right to life.   A selection of media coverage on the following issues, assisted dying, embryo selection, genetic screening and body mutilation.       

BBC News 24  UKDPC being interview  

Times and Sunday Times Newspapers

Daily Mail and Sunday Mail

Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph

Guardian and The Observer

London Evening Standard

 For further information see Not Dead Yet’s briefing on the Draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill.