The role of the disability community in defeating California assisted suicide bill..

..is explored in this article. Saw this in my news server this morning.

"The Los Angeles Times profiled the impact of the disabled rights activists and Paul Longmore, a history professor at San Francisco State and a member of the community, said disabled Californians played a big role.

Disabled people, Longmore said, "probably even more than most other citizens, understand the kind of suffering and needless pain that's inflicted on a lot of people and leaves some of them to prefer to die when they can't get the help they need."

Via LifeNews.com

And a hat tip to Penny Richards over at DisStudies Temple U, who blogs about the original LA Times article in which Longmore states:

""HMOs are denying access to healthcare and hastening people's deaths already," said Paul Longmore, a history professor at San Francisco State and a pioneer in the historical study of disability. "Our concern is not just how this will affect us. Given the way the U.S. healthcare system is getting increasingly unjust and even savage, I don't think this system could be trusted to implement such a system equitably, or confine it to people who are immediately terminally ill." Via LA Times

A senator noted that the two main groups opposing the legislation were the disability community and Catholics.