鈥淧eople are, at heart, worried about disability鈥�
The sociologist and bioethicist Tom Shakespeare says that people are told 鈥榯hat disability is a terrible thing鈥� when the fact is 鈥榳e all age. We all die. And as we age we all get more disability.鈥�
鈥極ne in six or seven people across the population is disabled. Most of them through ageing.鈥�
Professor Shakespeare鈥檚 work has seen him campaign across the world for greater rights for disabled people. Asked what he advises people in developing countries, he told HARDtalk鈥檚 Stephen Sackur, 鈥榙on鈥檛 make the mistakes we made. Don鈥檛 exclude people in the way you build buildings; in the way you have buses or trains. Don鈥檛 exclude the young, the old, the disabled. Because they are your future.鈥�
鈥楾he key to their prosperity is including people.
Professor Shakespeare has the genetic condition achondroplasia and is Professor of Disability Research in the medical faculty at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is also a writer and has just published his first novel.
