Hitler did not start out killing Jews, but people with disabilities. In The Netherlands euthanasia began as strictly voluntary. Now, more often than not, the doctor decides whom to kill. Even the status quo leaves much about which to be alarmed. Life-saving organ transplants are denied some persons on the basis of disability.
Obstetricians recommend the killing of the disabled before they can be born.
A nation is outraged at a mother's wanton killing of her two nondisabled sons. In 1983 Elizabeth Bouvia fought the courts to be allowed to starve herself to death. Since then the scope of food and fluids cases has continually been widening to include the permanently vegetative, then the severely incapacitated, and now those no longer able to make their own medical decisions. In a society which fears and even despises disability, disabled people need all the protections of life accorded the rest of us, perhaps more. Traditionally, western nations have respected dignity of life without regard to physical or mental condition.