Those of us without disabilities cannot fully comprehend life with a disability. In trying to be compassionate, we too often make judgments born of prejudice and fear. We sympathize with the belief that life with any disability may not be worth living. This bias pervades popular culture, the courts, and our health care system. We wrongly permit the withdrawal of medical treatment and, in effect, facilitate suicide within the disability community in ways that we would never tolerate with able-bodied patients. This article explores our historic prejudice against persons with disabilities, the faulty assumptions applied by judges and physicians in "right-to-die" cases, and some practical suggestions for improving the quality of care for these vital, but vulnerable, members of our community.

assisted suicide, ethical double standards, guidelines for suicide intervention, persons with disabilities, right to die
This content is only available as a PDF.