On a July night an ex-staffer broke into the Tsukui Yamayuri En care facility in Sagamihara, Japan. The man beat and tied up the night shift at knife point. He then moved on to the residents. In the morning, when the rampage had ended 19 lay murdered in their beds, a further 26 were injured, and the man, Satoshi Uematsu, had confessed. It was the largest mass murder in living Japanese memory. And this week was its first anniversary.
You’d be forgiven for not knowing or not remembering the events at Sagamihara: it was starkly underreported, even in Japan. Yet one wonders if the victims been a different group, or the perpetrator a different religion how the event would’ve been reported. Terrorist Attack would have surely been the descriptor of choice.
The social media response to the massacre’s anniversary was mostly as you’d expect with an outpouring of grief from the disabled community here and around the world, and a lack of acknowledgement elsewhere. But amongst the memorials was something disappointing: An attempt by some to link the horrific events of a year ago to the current debate in Australia about voluntary assisted dying, or euthanasia. The jump here is not as big as it seems at first; Uematsu in his correspondence to various government officials before the attack, and to police afterwards, had expressed a desire to ‘euthanize’ the disabled. But the use of similar terms is the only reasonable link between the two. Apart from being disrespectful to those who have lost their lives, the suggestion that the decision to take a pill and shorten your already ending life by months is in anyway analogous to violent bloody murder, it’s also foolish.
There is rightly concern among our community about the prospect of legalising assisted dying. In a country where disabled lives are still seen as a burden (remember that front page of The Australian) the risk of coercion and legislation creep is a real one. The question is: how do we prosecute our case?
The only way we can make sure our voices are heard is to have a seat at the table. And to take up that seat our concerns must be seen as valid. To equate the assisted dying system being proposed with a terrorist attack eats away at that. Wild analogies are not helpful and make us seem less serious. We cannot allow our voice in this to be written off as an entirely emotional one. We have too much skin in the game to use our voice in such a stupid way.
In many jurisdictions where assisted dying is legal the law has already been widened to allow people whose disabilities do not have a morbidity component, that is, there’s no chance of becoming terminal, to receive the treatment. It’s a legitimate concern that needs exploration. But how do we get anyone to listen to a case against this when we have already likened those who do not share our concerns to a mass murderer?
As we have seen again and again in this country, appeals to emotion are the Godwin’s Law of political debate. It’s weak. An insta-lose. When one side gets emotional the other claims the win. Using the Sagamihara card, as opponents will call it, is guaranteed to make our position seem weak. And in this case I tend to agree.
It is hard as a disabled person to take the emotion out of an argument especially when the debate, like this one, is centred on the value of life. But we must do whatever it takes to stop our voices from being ignored.
