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Thursday, May 31, 2007

Copy of Pope's new book auctioned - proceeds go to paralyzed man

The equivalent of $8000 was raised to help a paralyzed man in Poland who had asked for assisted suicide. Arrangements have been made to donate proceeds from each copy of Jesus of Nazareth sold in May toward his fund. The man no longer wants to die.

This story once again highlights the confusion that goes on around the topics of assisted suicide and euthanasia for people with disabilities. Often the lack of resources, poverty and accompanying despair are the reasons why some people ask for assisted suicide when their condition is not terminal. Who would want to live if that's the future one faces?

We need to look at the conditions that cause people with disabilities to ask for assisted suicide and work to remedy those conditions rather than considering these lives disposable.

"Since 1983, many people with disabilities have opposed the assisted suicide and euthanasia movement. Though often described as compassionate, legalized medical killing is really about a deadly double standard for people with severe disabilities, including both conditions that are labeled terminal and those that are not."

- from the website of Not Dead Yet

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