11-Year-Old Wheelchair Athlete Slams “Me Before You” Movie: “Why Do You Want Me Dead?”

By Micaiah Bilger
Life News

Ella French is an 11-year-old who uses a wheelchair. She also is a professional female wheelchair skater (WCMS), currently ranked number two in the world. Like many pro-life and disability rights advocates, French is upset about a new summer romance flick, “Me Before You,” that she said promotes assisted suicide for people like her who have disabilities.

French wrote a strong column for Aleteia this week, rebuking Hollywood for promoting a film that romanticizes a disabled man’s suicide.

“This could have been a great movie. It could have been the love story of two people and one of them just happens to use a chair,” the 11-year-old wrote. “It happens all the time. The people in love don’t think about the chair. It’s the other people who think it’s a big deal.”

“Me Before You” follows the story of a rich young man who becomes a quadriplegic and gives up on life. Despite his caregiver-turned-girlfriend’s attempts to show that his life has meaning, he chooses to commit suicide anyway. At first his young caregiver tries to persuade him to live, but eventually she caves into his decision to commit suicide.

French continued: My mom says this isn’t the first movie where a handicapped person had to die for being paralyzed. There was one called Million Dollar Baby where a woman is a quad and bravely chooses death instead of an imperfect life.

So I’m asking you again, what’s wrong with my life? Why do you think I should want to die?

You sit there with your able bodies, and look at people in chairs and think you feel pity for our sad little lives, but the truth is you’re afraid. You don’t want to imagine that you might be one of us one day. You think you can be perfect, and think you’d rather die than have parts that don’t work right.
I think that’s sad.

Story continues at lifenews.com


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