Frederick A. Fay was an early leader in the disability rights movement in the United States. Through a combination of direct advocacy, grassroots organizing among the various disability rights communities, building cross-disability coalitions between disparate disability organizations, and using technology to connect otherwise isolated disability constituencies, Fay worked diligently to raise awareness and pass legislation advancing civil rights and independent living opportunities for people with disabilities across the United States.
The Hemlock Society was an American right-to-die and assisted suicide advocacy organization which existed from 1980 to 2003, which took its name from the hemlock plant Conium maculatum, a highly poisonous herb in the carrot family, as a direct reference to the method by which the Athenian philosopher Socrates took his life in 399 BC, as described in Plato's Phaedo.
Elizabeth Anne Carr is an English actress, comedian, broadcaster and international disability rights activist. She is known for portraying the role of Clarissa Mullery in the BBC crime drama Silent Witness (2013–2020), and also for being a campaigner for disabled rights, and fronting the BBC documentary Better Off Dead? (2024).
Jane Susan Campbell, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton,, is a British disability rights campaigner and a life peer in the House of Lords. She was Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), and served as the Chair of the Disability Committee which led on to the EHRC Disability Programme. She was the former Chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). She was a Commissioner at the Disability Rights Commission (DRC).
Theresa Ducharme was a Canadian disability rights activist and a perennial candidate for public office. She lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Dignity in Dying is a United Kingdom nationwide campaigning organisation. It is funded by voluntary contributions from members of the public, and as of December 2010, it claimed to have 25,000 actively subscribing supporters. The organisation declares it is independent of any political, religious or other affiliations, and has the stated primary aim of campaigning for individuals to have greater choice and more control over end-of-life decisions, so as to alleviate any suffering they may be undergoing as they near the end of their life.
Harriet McBryde Johnson was an American author, attorney, and disability rights activist. She was disabled due to a neuromuscular disease and used a motorized wheelchair.
Euthanasia became legal in New Zealand when the End of Life Choice Act 2019 took full effect on 7 November 2021. It is illegal to "aid and abet suicide" under Section 179 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961. The clauses of this act make it an offence to "incite, procure or counsel" and "aid and abet" someone else to commit suicide, regardless of whether a suicide attempt is made or not. Section 179 covers both coercion to undertake assisted suicide and true suicide, such as that caused by bullying. This will not change under the End of Life Choices Act 2019, which has provisions on coercion of terminally ill people.
Euthanasia in Canada in its legal voluntary form is called Medical Assistance in Dying and it first became legal along with assisted suicide in June 2016 for those whose death was reasonably foreseeable. Before this time, it was illegal as a form of culpable homicide. In March 2021, the law was further amended by Bill C-7 which to include those suffering from a grievous and irremediable condition whose death was not reasonably foreseeable. The planned inclusion of people with mental illnesses is controversial and has been repeatedly delayed. The legality of this postponement to 2027 is being challenged in court.
Laura Ann Hershey was a poet, journalist, popular speaker, feminist, and a disability rights activist and consultant. Known to have parked her wheelchair in front of buses, Hershey was one of the leaders of a protest against the paternalistic attitudes and images of people with disabilities inherent to Jerry Lewis's MDA Telethon. She was a regular columnist for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, and on her own website, Crip Commentary, and was published in a variety of magazines and websites. She was admired for her wit, her ability to structure strong arguments in the service of justice, and her spirited refusal to let social responses to her spinal muscular atrophy define the parameters of her life as anything less than a full human existence. She was also the mother of an adopted daughter.
Stella Jane Young was an Australian comedian, journalist and disability rights activist.
Marilyn Golden was an American disability rights activist, most notably in the area of transportation. For many years she was a policy analyst at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF). She served on the U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board from 1996 until 2005. She had previously worked as the Director of Access California, which was a "resource center on architectural accessibility run by the City of Oakland". She also worked as Co-Coordinator of the Disabled International Support Effort, which aided disability organizations in developing nations. She opposed assisted suicide and fought against assisted suicide legislation in California, Hawaii, and Vermont. She also lobbied for the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
For the American R&B singer, see Carrie Lucas.
Marilyn E. Saviola was an American disability rights activist, executive director of the Center for the Independence of the Disabled in New York from 1983 to 1999, and vice president of Independence Care System after 2000. Saviola, a polio survivor from Manhattan, New York, is known nationally within the disability rights movement for her advocacy for people with disabilities and had accepted many awards and honors for her work.
Miro Griffiths is a British disability advocate who is a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow based at the University of Leeds, in the School of Sociology and Social Policy. He is also deputy director of the Centre for Disability Studies, an interdisciplinary research centre exploring disabled people's oppression, marginalisation, and liberation.
Barbara Greenlee Toomer was an American advocate for disability rights. She was born and raised in Southern California and attended nursing school in San Francisco. She then joined the United States Army Nurse Corps in 1953 and was stationed at Fort Bragg. In 1956, Toomer contracted polio and became a wheelchair user. She spent the remainder of her life advocating for disability rights in Utah. She founded and participated in multiple activist organizations, participated in protests against inaccessible transportation, and lobbied for housing freedom for disabled persons. Much of her activism involved ensuring that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was upheld. Toomer received numerous awards for her efforts; she was awarded the Woman of Courageous Action Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Organization for Women in 2000 and the Rosa Parks Award by the Salt Lake branch of the NAACP in 2017. Toomer died in 2018 and was buried in the Utah Veterans Cemetery.
Barbara Faye Waxman Fiduccia was an American disability activist, author, and educator.
The Disability Day of Mourning is observed annually on 1 March to commemorate disabled people who were murdered by their caregivers, especially their parents. First observed in 2012 and propagated by disability rights organizations such as Not Dead Yet and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the day aims to bring attention to the issue of filicide of disabled children and adults and the degree to which such murders are treated as different from or more socially acceptable than similar murders of abled people.
Better Off Dead? is a documentary on assisted suicide written and presented by disability rights activist Liz Carr, which was broadcast on BBC One in May 2024. During the documentary, she advocates against the legalisation of assisted suicide in the United Kingdom due to concerns for its implications for disabled people. The programme received generally positive reviews.
