Concepts of human dignity gain special significance if their implications for persons with disabilities are considered. Disability activists and advocates speak about violation of the human dignity of people with disabilities with regard to involuntary institutionalization, medical treatment without consent, exclusion from education, work and social life, lack of assistance and care, risk of poverty, absence of respect for privacy, home and family, as well as the experience of disregard, disrespect and humiliation. Particularly, in the field of biomedicine and bioethics, disabled persons feel their dignity is violated due to selective abortion and end-of-life decisions based on an understanding of disability as ‘wrongful life’. They identify the values and perspectives of scientists, physicians and ethicists holding such views as those of well-educated, middle-class members of society who ‘prize intellect, rationality, and the goal of human health’ (Ash 2001: 293). This corresponds to a negative assessment of the quality of life of people with disabilities, which in turn promotes degrading or insulting behaviour towards them (Hubbard 1997).

Human dignity is understood here not as an individual attribute or a special right but as the founding moral principle of an adequate human rights framework that is truly inclusive and universal and hence recognizes the particular needs and living conditions of people with diverse impairments. What follows is that, by stating that ‘someone has dignity’, what is expressed is that she or he has to be recognized as a bearer of human rights. And saying ‘her dignity has been violated’ indicates a systematic disregard of human rights.