Your Letters – April 2011

How stupid? A bit?

I’ve just received my census in the post. It was all fairly straightforward until I got to Question 23. The question bizarrely jumbles together disability and health problems, things that are not necessarily linked. It asks whether your disability or health problem limits you “a lot” or “a little”. How subjective is that! I actually had no idea what to put. Sometimes my disability affects me a lot; most of the time it only affects me a little because I’ve organised my life to the nth degree.
How they’ll get useful, accurate figures from this question I don’t know. Why couldn’t they make it more direct, like the ethnic and religion questions? Do you have a health problem, yes or no? Do you have a disability? If yes, what sort, e.g. mobility, visual etc?

What is it about disability? Are they just not that interested in getting accurate information?
Emma Bowler, by email

It's a crip off!

I thoroughly enjoyed the article “Crippen: caught in the act” (Disability Now, March 2011). I identified with it all, especially the first cartoon. I may have written something like that when Maggie Thatcher was in power – so, Crippen, you may have taken my idea from 30 odd years ago! By the way, I recall only too well when My Lady’s government had the idea that one-off Income Support payments for essential items should become loans that the Benefits Agency would pay back from the peanuts we received weekly. The Cons haven’t changed much have they?
Sue Jamieson, Pitsea, Essex

Wages of taking part

I’d like to thank you all at Disability Now for the Amazon gift vouchers that you sent me for winning the Reader Survey. I’ve spent them on some art books and two copies of Les Misérables 10th Anniversary version for us and some friends. We couldn’t have afforded them without this wonderful prize and we’re very grateful. Thanks again.
Alan Cole, prizewinner, Reader Survey

Assisted suicide: grounds for fear

On the subject of assisted suicide (“Your Views”, Disability Now, March 2011), one writer states: “There’s no evidence that a change in the law would harm vulnerable disabled people.” What would he/she accept as evidence?

Taking legal protection from the life of one person who asks for death affects everyone else. People who need care and cost the state money – not just disabled people but the elderly – are put in the position of having to justify their existence, when all that prevents their removal from society is their “selfish” desire to live.
The change in public attitude might be silent and slow, but there are grounds for fear. In the Netherlands, babies who are imperfect may be killed by doctors following the Groningen protocol.
Elspeth Chowdharay-Best, Hon. Sec., ALERT

The topic of assisted suicide seems to me quite inapprop­riate in a magazine dedicated to helping the disabled.

Termination for disability sends a strong message to disabled people that their lives have no value, which is untrue. Disabled people enrich society in a deep and enduring way. To love is the great thing that gives value to life, and love shown in difficult circumstances shines in a special way.

To accept a disabled baby in a loving spirit is surely an inspir­ing sight to behold. I recall a woman who had a five-year-old daughter (many may say she was a cabbage) whom she carried round to coffee mornings etc. One could see the love that passed between them, and one felt better for the sight of it. It helped one to cope with one’s own handicaps.

A man with learning disabilities who came up and shook my hand in the supermarket after I’d been accepted into the Roman Catholic church meant so much.

Life without people with disabilities would be shallower and more materialistic.

The Abortion Law 1967 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 have brought a new cruelty or hardening in society, hence hospitals and staffs’ lack of care for their patients, and people being put on the Liverpool Care Pathway without hydration, sometimes without consultation with family members.
Susan Blake, by email

Disability needs wider representation

I suffer from several disabling conditions and I’m very grateful to Disability Now for keeping me abreast of disability issues and the views that people have about them, but one issue often overlooked is the lack of proportional represent­ation of disabled people.

Because our society doesn’t have proportionate numbers of disabled representatives disbursed among the organisations that typify British culture, our awareness of the numerous issues affecting disabled people is limited.

Too often, sympathy rather than empathy is the reaction when people encounter disabled people, and sadly (possibly an effect of the desire to be normal) this can sometimes be the reaction of some disabled people to other disabled people as well.

Unless and until, I fear, we see a representative number of disabled people among the MPs, councillors, police officers, refuse collectors, meter readers, construction workers, door-to-door sales people, social workers and others whom we commonly come into contact with during our everyday lives, disability issues will remain invisible to most of us.

As for individuals working for the media, particularly those we see on our TV screens, the lack of propor­tionate representation of disabled people is so
stark that when I see a commentator or reporter in a wheelchair it is such a rare sight that I notice it.

If the “big society” project is to work for disabled people then disabled people should be an integral part of all of the structures of our society.
Carole Elford, by email

If we're not disabled, stop using the word

As a mother of a child with complex special needs and the daughter of two parents and two grandmothers with Alzheimer’s, I feel extremely uncomfortable with any of them being referred to as disabled. They don’t view themselves this way. There are so many challenges that they face, and the most effective ways for us all to cope is to focus on the positives, on their abilities, not what they can’t do.

I’m disappointed that the words “disabled” and “disability” are still so widely used and I’m curious to know whether you have ever considered dropping the “disability” from your title at any point.
Susan Anderson, by email

Laughing with or laughing at?

I’m responding to Paul Carter’s article (“Boyle in hot water over gags”, Disability Now, January 2011) regarding offensive jokes made about people with learning disabilities.

While listening to Talk Sport on the radio recently, I was staggered to find they regularly feature “comedian” Angelos Epithemiou playing a character with a learning disability. The character, who has ran a burger van in the past, “advises” people about business during a viewer phone-in. He is one of these comedians who think it’s OK to lampoon learning disabled people.

It’s saying it’s OK to make fun of disabled people. I’m staggered that there are people making money out of it. It shines a light on the public who are basically saying “Look at these people who are different! Aren’t they funny?”