Shortly after Jeff Preston was born, his parents were told their son wouldn’t live long — he was disabled, he’d never walk and if he survived he’d never live a normal life.

When Preston was three months-old he was diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, but contrary to what the doctors said, Preston’s life turned out much different than expected.

“I left home, went to school, I’m married with a PhD and living a . . . normal life, despite the fact that I can’t walk,” said the 33-year-old Fanshawe College professor who has teamed up with a group called Project Value to share why disabled lives have value.

The online initiative began in July because of the growing concerns about the way disabled people were being leveraged as a way to boost the approval of doctor assisted suicide.

“We were being used as a way to say ‘hey look at these poor suffering people, we need to legalize this,’” said Preston. “But at no point (is the public) seeing what it is really like to be disabled, it’s through this lens that is showing that we suffer and our best option is to die.”

The project has a social media campaign on Facebook where they seek to explore a different perspective and to share the stories of people, like Preston, that contradict the manufactured narrative that disability is a fate worse than death.

“These narratives never seem to reflect my experience. Yes, there are difficulties to life with a disability, but I’ve always had the mindset that rather than look internally and think ‘woe is me, my life is a tragedy,’ I should spend my time out there to make it better so I can live a sensible, normal life,” said Preston.

The purpose of the project is not to end the debate over doctor assisted suicide, but instead Preston said the people involved are trying to end the growing narrative that people with disabilities are “suffering, poor souls.”

“My biggest worry is people that look at a disabled body and think ‘I could never live like that . . . I’d rather die,” said the life value advocate.

Preston said the way advocates are leveraging the lives of disabled people in their debate paints a clear picture of the lives they think are worth saving and worth ending.

“(These groups) are using examples of disabled people who want to terminate their life and the response is ‘absolutely I understand,’ but a non-disabled person with the same desire would be told no and get help to not think that way,” he said.

With no clear end in sight to the debate, Preston and his Project Value peers said they can only hope to make people see the reality of life with a disability.

“We don’t have an end objective, we aren’t trying to demoralize or stop the discussion (on doctor assisted-suicide), but trying to make it more complex,” said Preston. “At the very least, I’m hoping that we made a space for people to be proud of who they are and what they’ve done and to project their value.”

hailey.salvian@sunmedia.ca

Twitter.com/HaileyAtLFPress