Rejecting rights: The disability critique of physician assisted suicide

Abstract

This chapter examines disability rights movement's rejection of a right to physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Supporters of PAS frame the right to enlist a physician's help in determining the nature and timing of one's death as a fundamental liberty interest and as a right to privacy. The disability opposition counters this with disparate impact and slippery slope arguments and stories of disability pride as a rhetorical rejection of a right it deems dangerous and discriminatory. In examining this clash of rights talk, this chapter analyzes the legal and political consequences of anti-rights rhetoric by a movement that is grounded in notions of autonomy and self-determination.

Citation

Heyer, K. (2011), "Rejecting rights: The disability critique of physician assisted suicide", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Special Issue Social Movements/Legal Possibilities (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 54), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 77-112. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2011)0000054007