Popular Mechanics magazine includes a wheelchair design in its Top 10 Innovations of 2008. The winners, California Institute of Technology engineering students, have started the non-profit Intelligent Mobility International and are currently trying to lower the cost of their wheelchairs from $150 down to $40. (For the unaware, a folding lightweight manual wheelchair bought by any major vendor in the U.S. can easily cost a couple of thousand dollars.)
Rebalancing the scales of justice -- Columnists at the Guardian details how the U.S. Supreme Court has dismantled consumer protections against health insurers and what Obama must do to halt and reverse the damaging effects. Here's the up-shot, but see the column for details of what the Scalia Court has done to consumer health rights:
As the new president rolls out new proposals for ensuring health and economic security, he should not ignore the court's drive to roll back existing safeguards. If he acts fast, he could score some significant early wins, and send a clear signal that the new sheriff in town is serious about justice for ordinary citizens. Early in this Congressional term, it could be possible to legislatively "fix" decisions that distort major laws like Erisa (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act) and the Civil Rights Act equal pay guarantees upended in the Ledbetter case. His agency heads can rescind the mass of Bush administration regulations and policies that pre-empt vital state legal protections. His justice department can press the federal courts to faithfully construe laws in line with their original reformist purposes, and stop importing stealth deregulatory designs recently in vogue. Most important for the long-term, the president, together with allies in the Senate, can sensitise new judicial nominees to the priority of robust enforcement of guarantees protecting Americans' pocket book needs.The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently ruled that driving is not a "major life activity" under the ADA. Kellogg v. Energy Safety Services Inc. originates in rural Wyoming, where as stated at Workforce Management, "public transportation is virtually nonexistent and distances between towns are measured by hours rather than miles." The same conclusion about driving was reached back in 1998 and 2001 by the 2nd and 11th Circuit Courts, respectively, but passage of the recent ADA Amendments Act means that the logic behind this ruling should no longer apply to similar cases in the future.
Disabled rabbit gets a wheelchair -- The article says the American company that makes pet wheelchairs sells some for disabled pet skunks too. This will be something I ponder now and then for a while.
Woman in wheelchair sued after being hit by truck -- Apparently her being hit (while attempting to cross at an intersection that didn't have a crosswalk) caused a couple thousand in damage to the truck. The comments to this article aren't for the faint of heart: The prevailing sentiment seems to be that a woman in a wheelchair has no business in the street.
British film censors label new film with the warning that it contains "disability themes" -- Imagine any other group of citizens being considered troublesome enough to warrant a warning label: "Women doing girly things" or "Beware: Black folks!"
British teen wins right to refuse heart transplant -- One of a number of news stories out of the UK recently that focuses on assisted suicide and the "right" of people to die.
"Noel, is life really not worth living?" -- Ouch podcast host Liz Carr addresses Noel Martin, a man paralyzed in a 1996 attack by Neo-Nazis, who plans to travel to Switzerland to commit suicide. Carr says:
I know when people read your story, many will agree that yes, if they were in your situation then they would want to die too. Most people are so scared of illness, of disability, of getting older, that wanting assisted suicide is seen as an entirely rational desire. What scares me is that views like these will also be held by the doctors, the media, the courts, the government and all the others who have the power to decide if we live or die.
I'm sure by now you know how I feel about assisted suicide. Until the day when good quality health and social care are universally available regardless of age, impairment, race, gender or location, I believe there is no place for legalised assisted suicide.
I just think it's too easy for a society to promote assisted suicide as a right rather than work to overcome the barriers to supporting older, ill and disabled people to live fulfilled and valuable lives. Forget the right to die, isn't it more urgent that we campaign for the right not to be killed?
See also Bad Cripple and Secondhand Smoke for more on Noel Martin.
Then read a contrasting story, also out of the UK -- Sue Garner-Jones, a British teacher who has been paralyzed since an automobile accident 34 years ago, responds to the much publicized Swiss suicide of a former rugby player called Daniel James. By Swiss suicide, I refer to Switzerland's practice of legalized assisted suicide that an estimated 900 Britons avail themselves of each year. Garner says:
People make their own decisions about how to live their life. But there’s a lot of talk about bravery and courage for people who were opting out of living their lives. I didn’t like the inverse of that.
To call this action ‘brave’, ‘courageous’ and ‘selfless’ implies that those of us who battle on are ‘cowardly’ and ‘selfish’, which is unfair and untrue.
Here's the skinny on Daniel James. All this has been huge news across the pond. We've been a little self-involved with our elections, I suppose.
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