Welfare Reform on the Web (July 2008): Services for the disabled - overseas

Disabled people and the right to life: the protection and violation of disabled people's most basic human rights

L. Clements and J. Read (editors)

Abingdon: Routledge, 2008

Human rights has increasingly come to be seen as a significant framework, both to aid understanding of the experiences of those who face oppression, and to underpin social, legal and political measures to counter it. The book uses this framework to explore how disabled people's right to life is understood in different national contexts and the ways in which they are – or are not – afforded protection under the law, emphasizing the social, cultural and historical forces and circumstances which have promoted disabled people's right to life or legitimated its violation. It explores issues such as:

• Cost-effectiveness analysis and preferences
• Disability rights and resuscitation
• Assisted dying versus assisted living
• Access to care
• The selective non-treatment of disabled babies and young children.