See what you think for yourself before I give my 2 pence.
"It is the advertisement deemed too shocking for you to see. At any age, any one of us could be struck down with motor neurone disease – a fatal condition that robs its victims of their mobility, leaving healthy minds trapped within wasted bodies. But witness its ravaging effect on a real-life sufferer? That, the television censors have decided, is too graphic for viewers to handle."- Telegraph (UK)
Firstly, I'm against censorship, and my objections to this are not to say it should be banned from anywhere.
I'm all for a good shock job and getting people's attention, but this isn't a good use of shock on a couple of levels. Firstly, its disturbing not because of the disability aspects of it, but because it has overtones of abuse, rape and kidnapping. I debated putting it on this site because of this, but feel it raises some important issues (though not the one's intended).
On the disability side, it feeds the idea that disability is a horrific thing to be feared, and is a sentence. It's praying on people's fears to solicit money and equating disability to the imagery in this ad, is wrong and does a disservice to individuals with disabilities. Pity and fear are not emotions to build independence and civil rights for individuals with disabilities on.
What are your thoughts?
Sarah's Story site
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