Thursday, 19 July 2012
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Money vs. Morals: Forcing Treatment on People with Disabilities
Imagine you’re talking to a group of people about disabilities. One person says to you that disabled people should be force fed what ever cure or treatment is available so that their hard earned tax dollars are no longer burdened by having to support those people.What would you say?
“No moral right to refuse a cure”
While in a heated discussion on a blogs comments, two people exchanged opinions where one person, nicknamed “taxpayer” replied with this:
M@”Does focusing on access barriers rather than cure make a wheelchair user less of a stakeholder in discussions re physical disability?”
From my taxpayer perspective the answer is No, they don’t have a right to be there. No one has the right to refuse a cure or a treatment that would make them less needy of state-sponsored services.
I would much rather see my tax dollars going towards a CURE, I would rather be paying to ERADICATE autism than paying for your wheelchair access barrier and many millions of wheelchairs to come.
So yes, unless a disabled person is financially and physically independent they do not have moral right to refuse a cure or treatment. And they especially don’t have any right to sit on a panel that was created to COMBAT that disability.
Sorry, I’m not going to link to their blog so you will either have to find it yourself to get full context (does context really matter for a statement like this?) or just take it for what it is.
To paraphrase, and I don’t think I’m far off here, is that this hard working taxpayer feels that their valuable dollars are going to people who would rather keep needing more tax dollars than be cured and stop costing the system money.
From a strictly greedy, selfish, inhuman and egotistical point of view, this reasoning is actually quite understandable.
Still though, it doesn’t explain the “moral” part, does it? What does money have to do with morals? What does saving a buck have to do with morals?
Allow me to paraphrase once again, keeping morals in mind, just so that I can make better sense of this: “You and/or your child should not be allowed your basic rights nor have freedom of choice as it interferes with my wallet.”
Morals? All I see is irony.
How to respond? Let me count the ways!
So I got to thinking about how I’d respond to this person. I know from past experience that any response, no matter how articulate, compassionate, informative or insightful would basically fall on deaf ears. Excuse the disability pun. And the irony. Again.
I decided to do away with responding from my heart. I figure that this person would actually require one to be able to understand, much less relate to, my thoughts on the subject.
Instead, I figured it would make far more sense to appeal to their tragedy. They are obviously very hurt by this.
So here is my response to Mr or Mrs Taxpayer.
Dear “Taxpayer”,
My child was born with a disability and our entire lives are affected by it. There’s going to be some struggles just about every step of the way and yet we never get down or negative about it because we just love him so very much.
But please, tell me about how burdened you are by paying the same taxes I am. That must be devastating for you. Is there anything I can do to help? I hate to see you suffer so.
Sincerely,
A taxpayer too, but with a heart.I would love to hear your responses to this person. What would you tell them if you could say just one thing to this person?
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About the Author
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- From: stuartduncan
- Name: stuartduncan
- About Me: Work from home father with 2 boys, one with Autism and one without. Learning all I can as I push for Autism Understanding and Acceptance.
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Comments (10)
I've been given a lobotomy because of this. Now I'm braindead. No matter how many times you explain, it's almost always pointless.
Try to understand that morals are internal.
I cannot be sure what the conditions are like where you live, but from what I've seen, money gets more respect than human life and I do not approve of this fact. It's becoming this way more and more as we unknowingly continue to anthropomorphize it along with other abstract ideas.
"If a young man wrecks his Porsche and has not had the foresight to obtain insurance, we may commiserate, but society feels no obligation to repair his car. But health care is different. If a man is struck down by a heart attack in the street, Americans will care for him whether or not he has insurance." - Stuart Butler
What I keep seeing is very confusing miscommunication due to misunderstanding. A Porsche doesn't have feelings and neither does money. It's not that most of us (i.e. "society") choose to not "commiserate" when a young man "wrecks his Porsche" because we don't want to... it's because the vast majority of us haven't met a young man that owns anything close to a Porsche. What's going on is generational warfare, and the sad part is that the younger generations are not realizing it, and we continue to fight blind against the people we care about.
Society does not have feelings. Individuals have feelings.
And what happens in the meantime before a cure is found? In 5-10 years we MIGHT have a cure for autism, but until then you are trapped in your own house because I don't want to pay for you to access the same places that I can access. o_O
"unless a disabled person is financially and physically independent they do not have moral right to refuse a cure or treatment."
at a base level, this basically means you shouldn't stockpile medication you don't plan to use. or be able to receive money from the government for reasonably preventable conditions.
you shouldn't take advantage of the good will of others more than is necessary. disability doesn't entitle you to anything. i could go deep into it, but basically there is a type of wheelchair which allows the user to stay "standing" and also goes up stairs, meaning with/through the device the user can use pretty much any existing infrastructure truly making them 'hanicapable'. granted it takes about 17 seconds more to get into a car but...they are pretty much good to go. nearly nothing needs to be rebuilt or altered unlike traditional wheelchairs which struggle with steps, and ladders.
"My child was born with a disability and our entire lives are affected by it."
this sums up your position pretty well. if you deny a cure (not just a quick fix) or proven treatment (with large sample size), you refuse the right to complain about the condition. EG if you use a wheelchair and have a reasonable ramp provided as an alternative to stairs, you lose the right to complain (or sue) about the stairs not working with the wheelchair.
here is another example. let's say you have an infant, and you want to go out to eat to a fancy restaurant. if you can be reasonably expected to know it is inappropriate to bring a infant to a fancy restaurant, as well as that infants disable you from going to such places before obtaining one, you can be expected by society to get a babysitter (representing external technology like the wheelchair) to aid you in taking care of the infant without ruining everyone's evening. if you refuse it, you should expect people to gripe about the crying. in the metaphor- the baby is the disability, the baby sitter is the cure, you and your partner are the people who are Afflicted by the need to care for the infant, and society is itself.
while selfish on your ethical level, 'society' has every right to get upset if "will you marry m-" is cut off by a bout of crying due to the breeder's disability not being dealt with appropriately. civil integration is when no one is forced out, not when there simply isn't a cure. and that state of what happens when there is no cure is a whole another topic which deals with reasoned assurance and forwards compatibility of cures.
on another level, which would take a page to support. it is cheaper to help the person than fix the environment.
also idk who the author you respond to is, but he likely knew about the post-wheelchair technology or it is nonsensical ranting.
Sometimes I think people react to everything too emotionally...
@Adrenaline_Unknown@xanga - <----I agree, 100%
Imagine a child whose parents are vehemently opposed to vaccinations and who therefore decide that they are going to refuse the myriad of vaccines in the childhood vaccination schedule. Now imagine that during his childhood, the child is exposed to someone who had just returned from a country in which polio hasn't yet been eradicated. Due to his lack of immunity, the child may very likely contract polio, and have a lifelong disability as a result.
The argument that "Mr. Taxpayer" is trying to make is to say that an inoculation given in early childhood before the possibility of exposure would cost a heck of a lot less than the disability, Medicare, Medicaid, and other such tax-funded payments that the child would be eligible to receive for the remainder of his adult life. Essentially, his argument is that preventative care would be far, far cheaper for the American taxpayers than lifelong damage control for a completely preventable disease. The conclusion at which they erroneously arrive, that those benefiting from tax-funded programs shouldn't have the right to refuse treatment, is, above all else, extremely ignorant. All practicing MD's take an oath that actually limits the *doctor's* ethical rights in such a situation, and prevents them from acting contrary to the patient's wishes, or those of that patient's legal guardian. In a medical setting, the patient's rights are paramount, regardless of who is footing the bill.
HOWEVER, and I cannot stress this enough, vaccines SHOULD be the exception to this rule, as the decision not to vaccinate doesn't only endanger the child in question, but every member of the community with which the child has contact throughout his life. Vaccines' primary effect is the inoculation of an individual against a particular pathogen, but there is a secondary effect called "group immunity," which is the means by which a disease can be eradicated from an entire country or region. Group immunity is only effective once a critical percentage of the population is inoculated; anything below that percentage, and there are gaps in the protection that can lead to an epidemic. And since group immunity is a public, rather than private, health concern, then the government may have the right to mandate vaccinations in the interest of public health.
Your child was born with this unfortunate disease and didn't have a choice in the matter. I feel terrible for that child's unfortunate position and will support him/her every step of the way. The topic of "not paying" pertains to those who bring diabetes upon themselves by poor eating habits and lack of exercise, i have no sympathy for them.
If they're refusing treatment on the grounds that they're quite happy living off of taxpayer money, just shoot 'em and be done with it. Other than that, people should be free to make their own medical decisions. Just educate them.
A coworker of mine would rather force medicine on anyone just because it's her preference to be pro-medicine. She's a crappy person anyway, though.
Context does matter, but the point of this is responding to YOUR response, not responding to a possible out-of-context conversation. So... *shrug*
Yeah, because the context isn't there, I don't exactly know what you are responding to so I don't exactly know if I agree or disagree with Mr. Taxpayer and to what degree. So I'll ramble.
If a cure for a disability is in the experimental phase or comes with significant risks, then I don't take issue with refusal. But I don't understand why someone would want to refuse a successful, proven cure or accommodation. And if they are receiving money from the government to support themselves, then it does seem pretty messed up to refuse the cure. It makes the person sound like they are lazy and just don't want to support themselves.
It's about finding the balance between individual rights and the rights of everyone else, the public as a whole.