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Terri Schiavo Page
Nineteen National Disability Groups Issue Joint Statement in Support of Terri Schiavo
National Disability Rights Issue Affects Every American Alive
Oct. 27, 2003 -- We, the undersigned, come together in support of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, and her human and civil rights. We are the national spokespersons for the rights of millions of Americans with disabilities whose voices are often not heard over the din of political and religious rhetoric. We come together for those who will be touched by disability in their lifetime and who will need our help to make their voices heard.
Washington, DC-If Terri Schindler-Schiavo's feeding tube is removed, she will have been killed because she is not being given the Constitutional protections the rest of us enjoy, say nineteen disability rights organizations in a statement released yesterday.
"Treating people differently based on health or disability status violates the rights of people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as the rights that all people should be assured by the U.S. Constitution" said Jim Ward, President of ADAWatch, a Washington-based group, which protects the civil rights of people with disabilities. With no clear and convincing proof, such as a signed advance directive, withholding care based on the belief that a person would want to die because of disability is discriminatory, and violates Constitutional protections as well.
The "right to life" movement has embraced her cause to prove "sanctity of life." The "right to die" movement believes she is too disabled to live, better off dead. Yet the life-and-death issues surrounding Terri Schindler-Schiavo are actually disability rights issues-issues that affect millions of Americans old and young. Can she think? Hear? Communicate? These questions apply to thousands of people who cannot currently articulate their views and so must rely on others as substitute decision-makers.
In this matter of living as a disabled person, those of us who live with a disability are the experts-not husbands, not parents, not doctors, not ethicists. We know that life with a disability is worth living, and we know something we find appalling is the attitude of "better off dead "-an opinion that drives much of the thinking surrounding people like Terri Schindler-Schiavo.
Are some deaths more rational than others? Don't incompetent ill and disabled people deserve the same type of care that "competent" people get? Denying people like Schindler-Schiavo the care and support they need to live, say groups signed onto the joint statement, violates their civil and Constitutional rights. View joint statement at:
http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/schiavostatement.html