Disability advocates in North America are deeply concerned about the risks that legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide pose to persons with disabilities. In their view, it becomes another opportunity for society to exercise its own prejudices about disability and the lives of persons with disabilities. As the January 2010 edition of the Disability and Health Journal points out, “fear of disability underlies assisted suicide.”
A major proponent of assisted suicide, Janet Good asserts that: “Pain is not the main reason we want to die. It’s the indignity. It’s the inability to get out of bed or get onto the toilet… [People]… say, ‘I can’t stand my mother—my husband—wiping my butt.” The article points out that “many thousands of people with disabilities who rely on personal assistance have learned, needing help is not undignified, and death is not better than reliance on assistance. Have we gotten to the point that we will abet suicides because people need help using the toilet?”
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