Greetings Economists, The last few days have been a trying time for the disability rights community. Our most militant grassroots groups (not dead yet, ADAPT) have come under attack across the country primarily because the Bush right has chosen to grand stand about Terri Shciavo's life and death in Florida.
One of the nice things to come out of this horror for the disabled rights community is the decency of a few of the rest of the progressive community like Max Sawicky. But on the whole the progressive community has embraced the right to suicide implications of the Schiavo case and exploded with rage at the Disability community precisely because the disabled community chooses Schiavo as one our own. So that we won't reflexively give her up in the name of the right to die. Another decent person has been Yoshie who at least tried to put documents out that at least helped illuminate the divide between moderates and militants in the disabled community. No attempt seems to have bridged the gap though all we see for the most part is disrespect and anger because we seem to challenge how you intend to pull the plug on your dearest family member. No effort so far to see the disabled community more or less unity around Schiavo as being significant seems to have dawned on the progressive community so far. Instead what has emerged in the progressive community is an aggressive voice of attack against some of our finest voices on the basis of pulling the plug. In a more crude sense a right to commit suicide when it seems reasonable to that person. In that a woolly minded understanding of what disability is comes to the fore. The reason x person wants to die is that the quality of life is such and such. The next person confronted with the same circumstance decides they want to live. Schiavo well represents this dilemma. Her husband who does appear to love her dearly went for at least five years trying his best to help her come out of a vegetative state. This failed. How does the progressive community see that effort? Primarily I guess is that on day one Schiavo ought to have pulled the plug because it was obvious that Schiavo was a dead carcass. Nuance had left the room with Elvis. A perfectly good example of that attitude is Tom Walker, and Carroll Cox. Tom Walker claims the right to choose suicide trumps disability rights. Carroll Cox who is disabled with depression like me says that Schiavo is not disabled she is dead. I see on most progressive lists probably ten to one against the disabled community. One of very best voices is Adrienne Lauby, so I hope she works her further magic here to carve some space out for us. I will say this until I die, I unite myself with all disabled people. The purpose of the disability movement is to unite all disabled people. Not all disabled people feel unity. A lot of blind people just like blind people. If you unite all people then you embrace the hard cases as well. So Schiavo becomes the litmus test of which side you are on. JKS spun out the claim that the disability rights community has joined the Bush camp. That we are just opportunists going wherever the wind blows to get out friends. Where as I see us a real live militant progressive movement springing directly out of the oppressed with common cause with the larger progressive movement. In my view for the time being a lot of progressives are going to have to go home and study this issue with an open mind. Calling the disabled rights community, nutso, bizarre, anti-progressive etc and etc. Will not win you any friends amongst us. When the right to die becomes a wedge to push away a real progressive movement then the progressive community has lost it's way to a larger sense of what the left is. The left has never been a single issue right to die movement. It has been a larger social movement capable of uniting diverse interest into a mighty movement. You don't have the luxury of sitting on the side lines to pass judgment here on the disabled community. If what you see is the trump card here that the right to die will destroy the long sought unity of disabled community amongst our own, then you have lost your bearings as a left. thanks, Doyle Saylor
