Barriers to Enjoyment of the Right to Life
- Negative attitudes in society that life with a disability is “not worth living”;
- Lack of access to adequate food, clean water, shelter, and other basic survival needs.
- Life-threatening conditions in institutions and orphanages;
- Selective abortion based on disability;
- Infanticide and neglect of newborn infants with disabilities;
- Imposition of “do not resuscitate” orders;
- Withholding of life-sustaining treatment for persons with disabilities in hospital settings;
- Sexual and domestic violence, particularly against women and girls with disabilities;
- Failure to be inclusive of persons with disabilities in disaster management, programs for refugees and internally displaced persons, and other humanitarian programs; and
- Harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation, dowry killing, and widow burning.
Health care providers frequently underestimate the quality of life enjoyed by persons with disabilities. Consequently, persons with disabilities are sometimes not given life-saving interventions that would otherwise be provided to patients.
Medical personnel unilaterally might decide that the life of a person with disabilities is “not worth living.” These cases have included the imposition of a “do not resuscitate order” on the medical chart of patients with non-life threatening health care conditions.
In the United States, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disclosed the failure of US federal-level disaster preparedness for meeting the needs of persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities were left trapped in their homes for days and provided with completely inadequate medical care in shelters, and many died as a result. Later, persons with disabilities were often unable to access assistance programs because of numerous barriers, including, for example, the inaccessibility of shelters provided to survivors for persons who use wheelchairs.