Never mind the quality...value the life

Those who argue in favour of assisted dying are, says Andy Rickell, joining in with a society which is all too ready to regard disabled lives as without value

The Dignity in Dying brigade aggressively talk up traditional negative stereotypes of disabled people to promote assisted suicide. This worsens the climate within which disabled people must live, and forces activists onto the back foot. We need society to think differently about the quality of all human life.

Firstly, let’s nail the lie that life’s pattern is about moving from being a dependent child to being an independent adult, so that needing personal support due to impairment or old age is seen as a failure – becoming “a burden”. This is eugenic thinking and anti-human – only valuing people for what they do, not also for who they are.

We need to remind society that we are all inter-dependent – there are times in all our lives when we function best with the support of others – always as a child; ultimately as an old person if we are fortunate to live long enough; for some people at additional times too as a result of permanent or temporary impairment, and for all of us when we enjoy the interaction with family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, and all those who supply our material needs. We should rejoice at how all individual achievement arises because of the support we receive over our whole lives from others. All society’s successes are jointly achieved! So we need to recognise the value of both giving support and of receiving it too – no longer a “burden” or a “carer” but all of us citizens experiencing the true meaning of life together, whether in families or in the wider community.

Secondly, we need to value life all the more when it is under threat, and particularly when it is others’ lives at risk. Whether one sees human life as a gift from God, or a random gift, it is nonetheless a gift of immeasurable worth. To devalue any life is to devalue every life including our own. So it is our behaviour when another’s quality of life is threatened, including its existence, that is the touchstone that proves our own humanity. For instance, when a disabled person indicates they want to commit suicide, our collective first reaction must be to strongly encourage them to think otherwise, and to offer them every support that might help them to improve their quality of life both in reality and also as they see it – that is what we would do for anyone else. Any failure on our part to act in this way adds to the individual’s belief that indeed their life is not worth prolonging.