The opening act will consist of a dramatic presentation on CBC starring the ghost of Sue Rodriguez. As I approach my fiftieth year I chalk up a long list of infirmities that I live with in an uneasy harmony or have actually overcome through ingenuity and considerable help. I have stared my own death in the eyes not less than six times in 49 years. I know many other people, personally, who like Tracy Latimer do not share in words their appreciation for life or their own perceptions of the beauty and complexity of our world. Not speaking, but certainly not silent either, these people, fellow travelers of life have known the heights and depths of joy and suffering too.
Many people believe that theyknow what disability is all about already.
Sue Rodriguez chose to die. My problem is that these death mongers won't keep their private ignorance and irrationality to themselves. Rather they firmly, publicly parade their death sentences around, drawing the comfort of assumed solidarity from convincing others that I should be dead too. Now I have to deal with a public that wonders why I want to live or if I should be allowed to. With Robert Latimer, the media goes out of its way to paint large every negative shade of Tracy's life while turning its own blindness and deafness into deadly silence about all that was worthwhile in her life and her presence among us.