Rejecting Vulnerability
Rejecting vulnerability means that people with disabilities are not willing to accept the assumptions and perceptions of disability in society because they are not consistent with their experiences. People with disabilities are not more vulnerable at end of life simply because they have impairments. The vulnerability of people with disabilities is socially constructed, which means they are made vulnerable by negative attitudes about disability held by others, including their health care providers.
These attitudes often lead people to take actions, or withhold treatments, which make people feel they are not valued and can limit the choices and control people with disabilities have over their lives, including their deaths.
Many people with disabilities feel particularly vulnerable in medical settings. The emphasis in this system has been on what is wrong with people with disabilities, which has also come to dominate the public's understanding of life with disability. The medical system tends to classify and prescribe measures to ‘fix’ the ‘problem’ of the lives of people with disabilities. 27 This makes many people with disabilities weary of going to the doctor or the hospital.
Rejecting Vulnerability Sections
- Attitudinal barriers to the system: How does disability shape palliative care?
- Media and Societal Perceptions of disability
- Experiences of those who have difficulty or are unable to access the traditional palliative care system
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