Dr. Louise Campbell:

I mentioned that almost all disability rights organisations are opposed to the legalisation of assisted suicide on two primary grounds. One is disproportionate impact. I am not sure if that is what the Deputy was referring to in the first part of the statement he cited, namely, that persons with disabilities will be disproportionately impacted upon, not just by legislation or because of their disabilities but as a result of the fact that they often have multiple disadvantages. They might live in poverty, subject to a feeling that they are a burden to their families, or they might self-stigmatise their disability on the basis of the kind of stigmatisation and negative attitudes about disability that exist in society. They may feel lonely or isolated. There is a plethora of reasons why people with disability have multiple vulnerabilities.

The other reason that disability rights organisations oppose this legislation is that they conjecture that it will reinforce existing negative attitudes about disability because many of the people who request assisted dying - 97% in Europe and 100% in North America - cite reasons for requesting assisted dying as loss of dignity, mobility and freedom and an inability to carry out personal activities of daily living and daily care.

The people who are requesting assisted suicide services describe these impairments as undignified, humiliating and demeaning. Disability rights groups are rightly antagonised by such descriptions because they often apply to daily life for those with chronic disabilities. We have to be very careful about everything we say about disability because there is so much stigma attached to it and so many unconscious negative biases in society towards people with disabilities. Something must be done to address those negative attitudes. Just because a person requests assistance in dying, having acquired a disability or a condition which impairs him or her, does not mean that he or she is, at the same time, devaluing or making a judgement about the life of someone with a disability. Individuals with a disability may be very resilient, having learned to live and cope with their disability. They may not be very happy all of the time but they may be well able to deal with their disability. It is not the case that the person who is requesting assistance in dying on the grounds of the same functional impairments is making a value judgment about the life of a person with a disability. There are two separate ways of enacting autonomy.