One thing nobody teaches you is how politicised being disabled is. Your whole existence being called a waste of resources. Your whole worth being boiled down to whether you can work. If you can, you’re not disabled and get nothing. If you’re not, you’re lazy and deserve nothing.
Accessibility is seen as a burden and us demanding too much like the greedy people they claim us to be. No handouts! No Handouts! We are invisible and subhuman. We are the other. We are portrayed as burdens to society for simply wanting to exist in the world as they do.
The ability to live week to week is constantly in jeopardy. Lost jobs from sick days. Rising costs of medical care and accommodations. Your government assistance becomes a talking point and a target. People rallying for you to starve instead of paying any taxes to your care. One day your means to live just disappears without fanfare or your input. ‘Austerity measures’ being levied on us for being ‘leeches’. They might not kill us directly but they don’t care about leaving us to die.
Right to die advocates fighting valiantly for euthanasia but doing nothing about disability rights. Nothing about accommodations. Nothing about accessibility. Nothing about subsidies or in home care. They’d rather give us the ability to die than allow us to live. Because we are tragedies.
Burdens.
