Disabled People and the Right to Life

The most basic of human rights, the right to life, is the focus of this book. '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. Disabled People and the Right to Life 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. Written by an international panel of contributors including individuals holding public office, academics from the fields of law, social policy, disability studies and bioethics as well as practitioners and activists attempting to further disabled people's human rights, this truly interdisciplinary book will be of interest to students and researchers of disability, law, social policy and human rights.

Luke Clements is a Reader in Law at Cardiff University Law School, Wales and a practising solicitor. He is a member of the Law Society's Mental Health and Disability Committee and a member of the editorial board of European Human Rights Law Review. He has published extensively on the legal aspects of human rights issues. Janet Read is a Reader in the School of Health and Social Studies at the University of Warwick. Her research and publications have recently centred on mothers of disabled children, disabled children and the law and the use of ICT to meet carers' information needs. She is an editor of Disability and Society.

1. Introduction 2. Life, disability and the pursuit of human rights 3. Cost-effectiveness analysis, preferences and the right to a life with disabilities 4. Persons with disability and the right to life in Australia 5. Disabled people and the right to life 6. Disability rights and resuscitation: Do Not Attempt Reconciliation? 7. Disability, human rights and re-distributive justice 8. Human rights aspects of deaths of institutionalised people with disabilities in Europe 9. The right to life and the selective non-treatment of disabled babies and young children 10. End-of-life decisions in neonatology and the right to life of the disabled newborn child: impressions from the Netherlands 11. The right to life and the right to health of children with disabilities before courts: some Latin American examples 12. Access to care and the right to life of disabled children in Bulgaria 13. Unheard voices: human rights issues of disabled youngsters from Romanian institutions 14. The classification of newborn children: consequences for survival