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Disability Rights Activists File Motion in Texas Supreme Court
Lives of Children with Disabilities at Stake
March 27, 2002
In late March, over 20 national and state disability rights organizations, including ADAPT and Not Dead Yet, filed a friend of the court brief in the case of Miller v. HCA (NO. 01-0079). The groups protested that this so-called “wrongful life” case represented discrimination against people with disabilities. The case will be heard before the Texas Supreme Court on April 3rd in Waco, Texas.
The brief lays out the position that all children regardless of their mental and/or physical disabilities have the right to grow up and live in Texas communities. Therefore, there is no such thing as "wrongful life" after a child is born alive. The brief states that medical treatment should not be withheld from a premature newborn at birth solely because the infant may have or acquire disabilities.
Colleen Horton, disability rights advocate, and a parent of a child with a disability said, "There are literally hundreds of thousands of children with disabilities in Texas. The decision of the Texas Supreme Court in the Sidney Miller case will not simply be a reflection on Sidney's life, it will reveal how we value the lives of all of our children with disabilities. Don't ever try to tell me that my daughter's life is 'wrong'".
"The public and the court must realize that this case is about discrimination based on disability. It is not about medical malpractice, or the common law of negligence, or about advance directives, or about the validity of consent. This case is about the assessment of quality of life viewed through a societal prism that devalues the worth of children and adults with disabilities.”
Bob Kafka, ADAPT and Not Dead Yet organizer, stated in a press conference called to announce the filing of the motion, “In this brief, people with disabilities throughout Texas and across the nation are calling upon the Court to affirm the equal value of our lives under the law."
[compiled from news sources}
For more on the Miller v. HCA case, read Colleen Horton's article reprinted in the Envoy On-Line Archives.
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