Quote of the Day (Johnson)

"The peculiar drama of my life has placed me in a world that by and large thinks it would be better if people like me did not exist." -- Harriet McBryde Johnson, "Unspeakable conversations," New York Times Magazine, 2/16/03

(Last week I read in The Wall Street Journal about the death of disability-rights advocate Johnson, which occurred last month. Her account of her debate with Princeton University philosopher Peter Singer—an advocate of what she termed “disability-based infanticide”—is in the link above. She was the founder of Not Dead Yet, a disability-rights group formed 12 years ago to challenge the insidious assisted-suicide movement. As we approach a holiday for cherishing “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” it would do well for all of us to remember someone who fought for respect of the first of Mr. Jefferson’s “inalienable rights.”)