Respect for people with disability

#1006 for broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 7 Dec 2014

It’s hard to believe, but the debate continues over whether the life of a person with a disability is as valuable as one without.

Vaughan Olliffe, writing for the Centre for Public Christianity, reminds us of the important contribution Christian thinking makes to the debate about the value of disabled persons:

Theologian Oliver O’Donovan argues that we should not deliberate over what characteristics make someone a ‘person’. Instead we start with a commitment to treat all humans as persons, even those still in the womb but whom we’ve discovered to be potentially carrying a disability. When we commit to knowing and loving someone we can discover within them the personhood that all humans possess. When we take this approach, we can recognise that people with disabilities are in fact like us and, therefore, deserve our respect and care and should be regarded as infinitely valuable.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.