An elderly couple who have been married for 60 years and are currently still living together, then get separated after one of them becomes ill and requires care that can only be provided in a nursing home. The other is sent to a separate nursing home since their needs are different.

This is a breach of their human rights (and is a real life case for many elderly couples). Separating a married couple may ensure that each have their basic needs met (cared for, fed, kept warm and safe) but it fails to respect their human rights ie to carry on living with each other.

I was reminded of this scenario last week when I was talking to a young woman who was telling me about her boyfriend, and how the ring on her finger meant that they were going to get married, and how she utterly loved him and was looking forward to the wedding. A friend was saying how wonderful it was for them both and how nice it is to have that to look forward to and the thought that flashed across my mind was - "is he unfairly building her hopes up? Should he be more realistic?"

The young woman in question is wheelchair bound, with very little movement, almost no speech although she uses a very basic speech machine based on symbol combinations, requires 24 hour care, hoists, medication... an extremely severe disability.

But, nonetheless, she too has the fundamental right to a family life, to get married if she wishes. The bottom line is that she is a human being, a person. It may be hard at first glance to see that person and not the disability, but having had the priviledge of getting to know her, it is obvious that she knows her own mind, she knows what she wants. I believe she should be able to exercise control over the choices she makes about how to live her life, yet the reality is that almost everything is decided for her.

She hurts and hopes and desires and loves and fears just as I do, just as you do.

So when we discuss her wedding with her, when we talk to her about how in love she is, there's a terrible juxtaposition of wanting this love story to become reality and yet knowing that this choice is likely to be refused her because our society still doesn't quite view her as being human, so her human rights don't have to be addressed.

I'm not quite sure what the aim of sharing this story is, other than I hope to give people something to reflect on, in terms of how our societies view disability and the rights of those with extremely severe and limiting disabilities to be able to exercise their rights in the same way as the rest of us. Perhaps it is another example of hierarchy of who is a valid member of society and who isn't.