Latest news with #disabilityrights
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
A Disabled Woman Wanted to Starve Herself to Death. The State Wouldn't Let Her. A New Doc Looks at Her Case (Exclusive)
NEED TO KNOW Director Reid Davenport's new documentary Life After examines the right-to-die question through the experiences of disabled people Reid, who has cerebral palsy, uses the case of Elizabeth Bouvia, a young woman with cerebral palsy, as the centerpiece of the film Bouvia was denied the right to starve herself in 1983Allowing a person with a dire health diagnosis or an unbearable level of pain to die might seem like an act of mercy to some people. But what would happen if the government were to decide that anyone with a disability deserves the right to die? Filmmaker Reid Davenport confronts this question in his new documentary Life After, primarily through the story of Elizabeth Bouvia, a California woman with cerebral palsy who, at the age of 26, sought the legal right to starve herself to death. This was in 1983, and some TV news broadcasts questioned why someone who was young and beautiful would want to end her life. She said she wanted to die because she hadn't been given the right to live in a society with a healthcare structure that valued the bottom line over her well-being. Davenport, who also has cerebral palsy, and his producing partner at Multitude Films, Colleen Cassingham, kept hearing similar reasoning while making Life After, which is now playing in select theaters. Bouvia articulated her argument well when her case moved to court — she was in pain, tired and bogged down by bureaucracy — but the state eventually sided with the hospital, which said it could not betray its oath to first do no harm. So what happened to this so-called pioneer in the right-to-die movement after the case ended? That is the question Davenport set out to answer when he started working on Life After. Framed by Bouvia's story, the documentary explores expanded Canadian policies that allow nearly anyone with a disability to apply to die, why some disabled people have made the tough choice to die and how advocates for MAiD (medical aid in dying) defend the expansion of the policies from people with a terminal diagnosis to anyone with a disability. The film amplifies varied voices and points of view, like Melissa Hickson, who says her husband Michael Hickson was denied lifesaving care because doctors decided his quality of life was too low, and Catherine Frazee, a professor who posits that you cannot address human suffering by killing people. One participant, Michal Kaliszan, details how he considered assisted dying after his mother, who was his primary caretaker, died, and he could no longer afford the care he needed. While working on the documentary, Cassingham had to navigate a shift in taking right-to-die activism at face value as progressivism to fully understanding the implications of applying it to all disabled people. "I thought assisted dying was really about personal choice and bodily autonomy, values that I'm deeply committed to," she tells PEOPLE. "And in learning from Reid and in working on this film, I realized there's so much more to the picture of how it actually works in society, and it's deeply linked with the ways that we do and don't value certain lives, and a deep-seated ableism that underpins so much of society." Over the course of Life After, as Davenport searches for Bouvia's family and seeks to find out if she is still living, two themes emerge: that the focus on right-to-die policies ignores that so many disabled people are not given the right to live and that any one person deciding what a good quality of life is for someone else can be tricky. "The themes at the heart of this film are not niche; they're not particular to the disability community. Things like healthcare, isolation and the way that we value other human lives are universal," Cassingham says. "Everyone has a stake in the fight for a society that is invested in care and in upholding each other's dignity in the systems that we build and live within." Eventually, Davenport locates Bouvia's sisters, Teresa and Rebecca, and convinces them to appear on camera to talk about their sibling, who died in 2014. Encouraging the pair to open up about Bouvia was not easy, but Davenport's authenticity and transparency helped win them over. "Their main concern was that Elizabeth's reputation and decisions were going to be questioned again, and we ensured that was not our intention," Davenport says. "Basically, trying to, with the audience, meet them where they were at, and not force them." As Teresa and Rebecca share stories of Bouvia's life after the 1980s while the film visits people who have used or are considering using MAiD, it becomes clear that assisted dying may have its place in the medical system. However, as Davenport sees it, discussions about it should be handled carefully when the focus is on people with disabilities. "We should be asking, 'How can we enable disabled people to live?' And support them, and allow them opportunities," he says. "There's this sinister perspective that we are a burden, that we suck up money. So there's this underlying incentive for the health industry to allow people to choose assisted suicide." He continues, "What I would encourage people to do is to look at how we can better the lives of people with disabilities rather than leave them to die." Near the end of the film, Davenport fills out the application for Canada's MAiD program to see how easy or hard it would be for him to qualify. What starts as a funny exercise becomes scary when he passes with flying colors. He reflects on this and on all the people he has met who have gone down the same path and says he can't imagine how different he would feel about his life without the support, care and passion he has. In one particularly poignant moment, Cassingham agrees that her quality of life would also be greatly reduced without these things, but because she doesn't have a disability, she wouldn't be given the option to die because of it. "Quality of life doesn't have much to do with the abilities of our bodies. When someone becomes disabled or is aging, there's a real grappling with what that means, because society has told us that what makes us productive and able to enjoy life revolves around our bodies and our ability to do certain things," she says. "But for me, I've experienced a real reframing of disability as a natural part of the fabric of human experience." "I'm learning that quality of life resides somewhere else, and it involves the people around you, it involves being loved, and giving love and care," Cassingham adds. "And those are things we all have access to if we live in a society where care is fostered and relationships and interdependency is valued and fostered." While Bouvia's life after her landmark court case quickly fell out of the news cycle, Davenport's film reappraises the right-to-die question — through the sweet recollections of Bouvia's sisters, home video footage and the context of many others who are choosing to die or questioning why it is even an option. Life After is now playing in select theaters Read the original article on People
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
A Disabled Woman Wanted to Starve Herself to Death. The State Wouldn't Let Her. A New Doc Looks at Her Case (Exclusive)
NEED TO KNOW Director Reid Davenport's new documentary Life After examines the right-to-die question through the experiences of disabled people Reid, who has cerebral palsy, uses the case of Elizabeth Bouvia, a young woman with cerebral palsy, as the centerpiece of the film Bouvia was denied the right to starve herself in 1983Allowing a person with a dire health diagnosis or an unbearable level of pain to die might seem like an act of mercy to some people. But what would happen if the government were to decide that anyone with a disability deserves the right to die? Filmmaker Reid Davenport confronts this question in his new documentary Life After, primarily through the story of Elizabeth Bouvia, a California woman with cerebral palsy who, at the age of 26, sought the legal right to starve herself to death. This was in 1983, and some TV news broadcasts questioned why someone who was young and beautiful would want to end her life. She said she wanted to die because she hadn't been given the right to live in a society with a healthcare structure that valued the bottom line over her well-being. Davenport, who also has cerebral palsy, and his producing partner at Multitude Films, Colleen Cassingham, kept hearing similar reasoning while making Life After, which is now playing in select theaters. Bouvia articulated her argument well when her case moved to court — she was in pain, tired and bogged down by bureaucracy — but the state eventually sided with the hospital, which said it could not betray its oath to first do no harm. So what happened to this so-called pioneer in the right-to-die movement after the case ended? That is the question Davenport set out to answer when he started working on Life After. Framed by Bouvia's story, the documentary explores expanded Canadian policies that allow nearly anyone with a disability to apply to die, why some disabled people have made the tough choice to die and how advocates for MAiD (medical aid in dying) defend the expansion of the policies from people with a terminal diagnosis to anyone with a disability. The film amplifies varied voices and points of view, like Melissa Hickson, who says her husband Michael Hickson was denied lifesaving care because doctors decided his quality of life was too low, and Catherine Frazee, a professor who posits that you cannot address human suffering by killing people. One participant, Michal Kaliszan, details how he considered assisted dying after his mother, who was his primary caretaker, died, and he could no longer afford the care he needed. While working on the documentary, Cassingham had to navigate a shift in taking right-to-die activism at face value as progressivism to fully understanding the implications of applying it to all disabled people. "I thought assisted dying was really about personal choice and bodily autonomy, values that I'm deeply committed to," she tells PEOPLE. "And in learning from Reid and in working on this film, I realized there's so much more to the picture of how it actually works in society, and it's deeply linked with the ways that we do and don't value certain lives, and a deep-seated ableism that underpins so much of society." Over the course of Life After, as Davenport searches for Bouvia's family and seeks to find out if she is still living, two themes emerge: that the focus on right-to-die policies ignores that so many disabled people are not given the right to live and that any one person deciding what a good quality of life is for someone else can be tricky. "The themes at the heart of this film are not niche; they're not particular to the disability community. Things like healthcare, isolation and the way that we value other human lives are universal," Cassingham says. "Everyone has a stake in the fight for a society that is invested in care and in upholding each other's dignity in the systems that we build and live within." Eventually, Davenport locates Bouvia's sisters, Teresa and Rebecca, and convinces them to appear on camera to talk about their sibling, who died in 2014. Encouraging the pair to open up about Bouvia was not easy, but Davenport's authenticity and transparency helped win them over. "Their main concern was that Elizabeth's reputation and decisions were going to be questioned again, and we ensured that was not our intention," Davenport says. "Basically, trying to, with the audience, meet them where they were at, and not force them." As Teresa and Rebecca share stories of Bouvia's life after the 1980s while the film visits people who have used or are considering using MAiD, it becomes clear that assisted dying may have its place in the medical system. However, as Davenport sees it, discussions about it should be handled carefully when the focus is on people with disabilities. "We should be asking, 'How can we enable disabled people to live?' And support them, and allow them opportunities," he says. "There's this sinister perspective that we are a burden, that we suck up money. So there's this underlying incentive for the health industry to allow people to choose assisted suicide." He continues, "What I would encourage people to do is to look at how we can better the lives of people with disabilities rather than leave them to die." Near the end of the film, Davenport fills out the application for Canada's MAiD program to see how easy or hard it would be for him to qualify. What starts as a funny exercise becomes scary when he passes with flying colors. He reflects on this and on all the people he has met who have gone down the same path and says he can't imagine how different he would feel about his life without the support, care and passion he has. In one particularly poignant moment, Cassingham agrees that her quality of life would also be greatly reduced without these things, but because she doesn't have a disability, she wouldn't be given the option to die because of it. "Quality of life doesn't have much to do with the abilities of our bodies. When someone becomes disabled or is aging, there's a real grappling with what that means, because society has told us that what makes us productive and able to enjoy life revolves around our bodies and our ability to do certain things," she says. "But for me, I've experienced a real reframing of disability as a natural part of the fabric of human experience." "I'm learning that quality of life resides somewhere else, and it involves the people around you, it involves being loved, and giving love and care," Cassingham adds. "And those are things we all have access to if we live in a society where care is fostered and relationships and interdependency is valued and fostered." While Bouvia's life after her landmark court case quickly fell out of the news cycle, Davenport's film reappraises the right-to-die question — through the sweet recollections of Bouvia's sisters, home video footage and the context of many others who are choosing to die or questioning why it is even an option. Life After is now playing in select theaters Read the original article on People
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Seclusion rooms don't make schools safe, and Ontario needs a policy
A recent report entitled Crisis in the Classroom: Exclusion, Seclusion and Restraint of Students with Disabilities in Ontario Schools shares accounts of the frightening use of seclusion rooms in schools. It makes recommendations towards improving inclusion, belonging and educational achievement for disabled students. The report is from Community Living Ontario, a non-profit organization that advocates for people who have an intellectual disability. It analyzes the results from a survey of 541 caregivers of students with disabilities about their experiences in Ontario schools. Seclusion rooms are spaces where students can be kept in isolation and are not permitted to leave. Respondents to the Crisis in the Classroom report detailed incidents such as a student being secluded in a padded room, and a student being isolated in a small, closet-sized room. Read more: While some school boards have developed guidance independently, there is currently no provincial policy on the use of seclusion rooms in Ontario. The Crisis in the Classroom report calls for clear and enforceable provincial regulations and policy around seclusion and restraint. As an assistant professor of childhood and youth studies whose work examines constructions of the 'problem child' and everyday injustices against disabled and racialized children, I believe it is critical for Ontario residents and policymakers to take stock of the negative effects of seclusion rooms and commit to alternatives. I am unaffiliated with this report, but earlier in my career, I worked as as a one-on-one educational aide for students who attended a special education school that used seclusion. Defining seclusion rooms As education researchers Nadine Alice Bartlett and Taylor Floyd Ellis show, there is inconsistent terminology used to describe seclusion in schools, meaning that 'the conditions under which such practices may be used in some instances are subjective,' and this 'may contribute to a broad interpretation of what is deemed acceptable … in schools.' As opposed to sensory rooms, which students can usually leave at will and are often designed with sensory tools available for self-regulation (like weighted toys), seclusion rooms serve to isolate or contain students. Across North America, there are reports of seclusion rooms being built into schools or constructed in classroom corners. In the Crisis in the Classroom report, 155 survey respondents said seclusion was used on their child in the 2022-23 school year, where seclusion means having a locked/blocked door (83 respondents) or being physically prevented from leaving (25 respondents). Regular, sustained seclusion Crisis in the Classroom notes that almost half of the students who had experienced seclusion were secluded on a regular basis, and more than 10 per cent were secluded for longer than three hours. Research shows that seclusion is often discriminatory along lines of race, class and ability. Reflecting these patterns identified in larger research, the report flags that students had a higher risk for being secluded if they came from households with lower parental education and income levels, and if they were labelled with a behavioural identification or a mild intellectual disability. More than half of the caregivers surveyed had never given permission for their children to be secluded, and the report includes quotes from caregivers who were never told it was happening. Response to perceived source of school violence Seclusion rooms are commonly justified as necessary tools to keep teachers and (other) students safe. This justification ignores the evidenced success of schools that have reduced seclusion or eliminated it entirely through adequate staff support and trauma-informed training that draws from research-proven de-escalation strategies. I argue that turning to these alternatives, as the report recommends, is of dire importance. Investigations elsewhere repeatedly find that seclusion rooms are most frequently used for discipline or punishment — not for safety. Outside Ontario, where policy requires tracking the reasons why children are sent into seclusion, seclusion has followed incidents like spilling milk or asking for more food at lunch. Seclusion rooms act primarily as a disciplinary tool that targets the most vulnerable students in our schools. Ineffective, dangerous tools Seclusion is an ineffective educational and therapeutic practice and highly dangerous: research shows that seclusion rooms increase injury and violence in schools. This appears in the physical harm (for students and staff) that can occur in the physical restraints often required to force a student into a seclusion room. It also appears in the trauma that can ensue from seclusion (for students and staff) that increases the likelihood of future physical confrontations. Placing students, often in high distress, into a locked space where they cannot be closely supervised can and has resulted in their deaths. Seclusion without regulation As the Crisis in the Classroom report and repeated exposés illustrate, a lack of policy does not mean seclusion isn't happening in Ontario. It means seclusion is happening without provincial policy to regulate things like: Which students can or cannot be secluded, for how long and how often; What rooms for seclusion must look like and essential safety features; What data staff must collect about why seclusion rooms are used; When caregivers must be notified. Without these guidelines, sometimes no one knows that seclusion is happening — much less in what spaces, for which students and why — beyond the students and school staff who may be traumatized by this practice. Reports of violence in schools Crisis in the Classroom notes that teachers' unions have reported there's been an increase in violence by students against teachers, often presented in a way that suggests that disabled students are a primary source of this violence. The report acknowledges that the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario has said that students with special education needs have been 'chronically under-served by the government.' News media coverage, the report suggests, 'often takes the side of educational staff, and has an unfortunate habit of conflating disability with aggressive behaviour.' Unfortunately, the faulty perspective that disabled students are a source of school violence depends on an ableist logic that has worked historically to subject disabled people to over-incarceration. It effaces the fact that disabled children are actually more likely to be subjected to violence than their peers. Read more: The report points to the dire need to eliminate seclusion and turn towards possibilities that do not increase violence in schools and target disabled students. The report's recommendations echo calls from teachers' unions for appropriate, adequate staffing in schools and increased professional development, especially trauma-informed training, that would support teachers' work delivering supportive and inclusive education that keeps everyone safe. And these recommendations make an urgent call for strong and clear policy on seclusion and restraint in Ontario that would severely limit it or eliminate it entirely — and at least track when it's occurring. Safer and more humane schools This devastating report illustrates that we need policy on seclusion in Ontario now to protect everyone in our schools. I know first-hand that teaching, especially for educators working with students with disabilities, is underpaid and underappreciated work. More humane practices will keep schools safer for everyone, including teachers and all students, especially students who are still being subjected to seclusion today. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organisation bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Hunter Knight, Western University Read more: How school systems can honour the human rights of people with disabilities Restraining and secluding students with disabilities is an urgent human rights issue The death of a child with a disability at an Ontario school urgently calls for government action Hunter Knight receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
News24
4 days ago
- Health
- News24
Thato Mphuthi is outpacing her peers
Thato Mphuthi's life was changed when, as an 8-year-old, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the right hip. Although she recovered from the illness, she had to rely on crutches for mobility. This not only changed her perception of herself but also radicalised her because of the difference in treatment she experienced. She was bullied and alienated by her peers. 'It is through that discomfort that I started creating spaces [and] inviting and empowering other young disabled voices to ensure that they also take up space,' she told News24. At 30, she's the founder and director of Enabled Enlightenment - a disability-rights and advocacy organisation. She has spent the last five years providing support for people living with disabilities and their families and providing sensitivity training for workplaces. As an admitted 'big dreamer', she's not letting her disability or the perceptions people have of her limit her potential. 'I am a self-starter; I literally fight tooth and nail for everything that I have.'
New York Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Life After' Review: What the End Means
Near the end of his feature debut, the self-shot 'I Didn't See You There' (2022), the director Reid Davenport expresses a wish: 'I hope this is my last personal film,' he says. But 'Life After,' his new documentary, couldn't be anything but. Davenport starts with a hook: What happened to Elizabeth Bouvia, who, beginning in 1983, was the subject of a highly publicized legal battle in California? Bouvia, who had cerebral palsy, as Davenport does, had sought to starve herself to death with medical supervision — something the courts initially did not allow. Forty years later, Davenport can find no record of her death. Is she still alive? Has her perspective changed? His investigation is fueled in part by parallels he sees in his life. When he and his producer, Colleen Cassingham, locate Bouvia's sisters, they learn that her trajectory was more complicated than the news media's framing revealed. But 'Life After' also dives into broader questions about the legalization of medical assistance in death. The director makes clear that he does not oppose that choice, but he is concerned that messages of rejection from society and the economics of long-term care might push disabled people toward that end. He casts a particularly harsh spotlight on Canada's commercialization of this issue. ('Don't miss out on your chance to have an assisted death,' says a video that he and Cassingham watch that urges viewers to make arrangements early.) Davenport, upon learning he would qualify for assisted suicide if he lived in Canada, wonders if he would see his life differently if he didn't have such positive support from family and friends. He has felt alienated at times, but so have many people, yet only those with disabilities are subtly encouraged to consider a state-sanctioned demise. 'Life After' doesn't equivocate; neither does it offer easy answers. It tackles a thorny topic in a challenging way, with the tenderness, complexity and — notwithstanding Davenport's earlier wish — the personal perspective it deserves. Life AfterNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters.
