KILL THEM, NOT US:

Rights groups for disabled join in fight (Nina J. Easton, March 23, 2005, Boston Globe)

Disability rights groups have struck an uneasy alliance with Christian conservatives and are prepared to use the partnership to press for broad legislation restricting the ability of families to remove life-sustaining treatments from patients unable to communicate their wishes.

''Both sides of the culture war want to make this about their issues," said Diane Coleman, whose group, Not Dead Yet, was named for the same refrain in the movie ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Disabled-rights supporters ''as a whole lean toward being prochoice" on abortion, Coleman said, but worry about protecting individual rights of incapacitated people who might be considered a burden to both relatives and authorities. Coleman added that the partnership with Christian conservatives is ''very awkward."

But it's a partnership that has been critical to their cause. Last weekend's extraordinary late-night congressional session produced a bill, signed into law by President Bush, that forced a federal review of a state judge's order to allow the feeding tube removed from the brain-damaged Schiavo, a 41-year-old Florida woman who can breathe on her own but can't eat. Even one objection would have delayed Senate action, but Democrats took their cue from Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and let the motion go forward.

Harkin is a longtime ally of disability groups and a coauthor of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Last week, he worked with Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, and Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, on legislation allowing federal review of the Schiavo case.

''Senator Harkin's role was very, very key in terms of Senate leadership. Because Senator Harkin has been a leader on disability rights, Democrats were willing to give him deference, " said Marilyn Golden, policy analyst at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

For the connoisseur of human nature that uneasiness on the part of disabled rights activists and their supporters, who generally support killing the younger burdens, is rather savory.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 23, 2005 12:00 AM