Meet Charlie, a delightful eight year old boy who was born with some serious physical disabilities and special needs and wasn’t expected to live past his first birthday.
With him in mind please read Mark Pickup’s detailed account of the case of Robert Latimer who murdered his 12-year old disabled daughter, gassing her to death with fumes from his truck. He was convicted of second degree murder with a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 10 years. Now, just seven years later, Latimer is a free man and continues to enjoy widespread sympathy and support from the Canadian public.
Millions of disabled people have had misery in their lives. Many live alone, unloved, sometimes in pain. Sadly, that has been the reality for disabled people throughout history. But being miserable is not a reason to kill disabled people! If misery were a reason for death, not one of us with disabilities would be safe. It would create open season on the disabled. The answer is not to kill us in a flimsy excuse of stopping misery or bestowing so-called death with dignity. The answer lies elsewhere: it lies in proper pain management, and seeking life with dignity, and inclusion, especially for those who do not have it.
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One Comment on “Meet Charlie”
Thank you for posting this – the contrast between the attitude of the family on the film and the attitude of the majority of Canadians was really striking. I had no idea that such a large number of people felt that way. I thought that way of thinking was still mainly held by academics and secular bioethicists… I am taking a bioethics class at a secular university, however, and I have noticed that most of my classmates are strongly in favor of abortion, euthanasia, mercy killings, assisted suicide, etc. And even though I’m not disabled, I don’t feel like it would be altogether wise to trust those people with my life, or really with anyone’s life. Thank you once again for consistently writing such eloquent, informed, rational, and thought-provoking posts.