Mr. Peter Kearns:

If you look at the history of impairment labels, years ago, my impairment label of cerebral palsy was called spastic. Giving people labels goes back to 1836 and the British industrial revolution.

I do not know of any terminal illness that is not associated with a label. I think a lot of studies show that it is very hard to predict dying in terms of time and all that. I think we are identified with an impairment label, and that impairment label is hard to separate from disabled people. Even 40 or 50 years ago, it was predicted that people with my impairment label would die in our 30s, based on western clinical and medical science. Nobody would say that today. The problem is that impairment labels are very hard to define in terms of their relationship to terminal illness.