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Quality of life assumptions

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This is a lovely column by Leonard Stern from yesterday’s Citizen:

Studies show that able-bodied folk consistently judge the quality of life of disabled people to be much lower than do disabled people themselves. We project our own fears onto the disabled. Even medical professionals commit this error and underestimate the quality of life of disabled patients.

I recall once going to hear a disabled woman speak, about ten years ago. She touched on this topic, and I was left with the very distinct and uncomfortable impression that I had been doing just that–judging others’ quality of life to be low simply because I couldn’t fathom living in a particular way. 

On loneliness and depression

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Great piece in the Ottawa Citizen . It’s about assisted suicide and euthanasia and makes a tremendous argument against the practice. It concludes by saying:

There is a cultural assumption that severe disability is worse than death, and so to Daniel’s parents it was completely normal that their 23-year-old son wanted to die. Perhaps they were right. Maybe for Daniel, disability really would have been worse than death. But he should have been given a chance to discover otherwise.

This is our cultural assumption–that death is better, in particular in cases of disability. For that, we have no proof at all. (Tell me now, who is making a leap of faith with their arguments?)

Depression and loneliness are huge factors in wanting to die, in wanting someone else to die (in the case of abortion). Again, is killing the best we can come up with in these dire, sad circumstances?

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