History Main / BuryYourDisabled

* '''[[DrivenToSuicide Suicide]]:''' May carry the {{Unfortunate Implication|s}} that one is better off dead than disabled. Or, worst-case scenario, the writer who uses this trope [[TheSocialDarwinist really does believe that one is better dead than disabled]].

* '''Murder:''' The disabled person is killed off in a violent manner. This can be because they (the disabled character) were considered, by the writer and audience, an easier victim because of their disability. Tends to carry the {{Unfortunate Implication|s}} that someone who is disabled can't protect themselves.[[note]]This ''can'' be TruthInTelevision, but that depends on the specific disability -- and even the crippling ones can be compensated for these days. Before the 20th century... not so much.[[/note]]

* '''MercyKill:''' Someone close to the disabled kills -- or even murders -- the disabled, either by their request or thinking that life as a disabled person would be too hard to bear. This may overlap with suicide, mercy killing, euthanasia, and even murder, and may carry the same UnfortunateImplications as suicide.

* The book and subsequent movie ''Film/MeBeforeYou'' has its male lead Will (who has quadriplegia) commit suicide, with all the UnfortunateImplications that entails. It then goes further and has him leave the female lead a ton of money so that she can [[BrokenAesop "live boldly."]]

* Part of the backlash against vaccines is fueled by one fraudulent study that purported to link vaccines and autism (the fraudster hoped to supplant the usual measles vaccine with one of his own). As both scientists and autistic people have pointed out, this leads to some UnfortunateImplications: better to die in agony than be autistic.

** Ancient Egypt and Israel defied this trope, outlawing infanticide in their societies and severely punishing those who committed it. The former group would even rescue children "exposed" by foreigners living in Egypt. And the latter group's influence on Christianity and Islam led to the rise of orphanages as unwanted children were left at the doors of mosques and churches instead of being left in the woods to die.[[note]]Unfortunately in the countryside most children born with birth defects were either killed at birth or, by necessity, left to die.[[/note]] Orphanages often had [[OrphanageOfFear poor conditions]] though. Newborn infants also had a high mortality rate regardless in those days.

* Even before the Nazis, some eugenicists and euthanasia advocates (especially if they were both) advocated this idea. Because of the history, this remains one reason it's controversial, with a lot of disabled people and disability rights activists suspicious of euthanasia as a result.
* In modern times, a majority of fetuses with Down Syndrome are aborted, according to The Other Wiki: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome up to 92% in Europe and about 67% in the U.S.]]

* Curiously enough, averted by [[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/17/878896381/ancient-bones-offer-clues-to-how-long-ago-humans-cared-for-the-vulnerable multiple stone age communities]] according to recent analyses of various groups of remains and artifacts. There are examples of both individuals born with severe genetic disorders as well as those who had sustained severe injuries whose remains show evidence of care, and who would've died young due to aspects of their conditions that their caregivers would not have been able to identify and treat.

* In ''Series/{{Glee}}'': [[spoiler: Jean Sylvester, Sue's older sister, had Down's Syndrome and died of pneumonia. Subverted with Becky, who attempts suicide, but is stopped by Sue.]] Averted with the InspirationallyDisabled Sean from Season 1--he attempted suicide by driving into the pool but was found before he could succeed.

** ''Partnership'', ''The Ship Who Searched'', and ''The City Who Fought'', published a good thirty years later, try to soften this by portraying non-shelled disabled adults who are happy, reframing shells as life support, and explaining to a NaiveNewcomer that shells are the end point of assistive technology made to allow the disadvantaged to live as normal a life as possible.
** However, several {{Politically Incorrect Villain}}s do still despise shellpeople. The Kolnari in ''The City Who Fought'', in particular, are such [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinists]] that they readily kill any of their own children they regard as weak.

* Narrowly {{Averted}} in ''VideoGame/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaPortable''--in this version, [[DisabledLoveInterest Kyosuke]]'s angst about his CareerEndingInjury is upped so that [[ActionGirl Sayaka]] actually [[InterruptedSuicide walks in on him trying to kill himself]], prompting her [[DealWithTheDevil contract]] to heal him.

* ''Literature/TheShipWho Sang'' starts with the assertion that Helva's birth defects (deformed limbs and dim senses) meant she was born a "thing" and "as such would be condemned" if she didn't pass the encephalograph test required of all newborns. Because she was found to be intelligent, her grieving parents were presented with the choice of euthanizing her or surrendering her to be [[ManInTheMachine converted into a "shellperson"]] who would one day be the "brain" of a LivingShip. By implication, most disabled babies in this setting are killed.
** ''Partnership'', ''The Ship Who Searched'', and ''The City Who Fought'', published a good thirty years later, try to soften this by portraying non-shelled disabled adults who are happy, reframing the decision to put babies into "shells" as starting them on life support, and explaining to a NaiveNewcomer that shells are the end point of technological advances made to allow the disadvantaged to live as normal a life as possible.

* ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'': After introducing to great fanfare a blind main character, Hemmer, played by the franchise's [[DisabledCharacterDisabledActor first blind actor]], the series kills him off [[BlackDudeDiesFirst after he appears in just six of the first nine episodes]] - fewer than any other main character in the franchise. However, this is a downplayed example -- his race, the Aenar, are naturally blind and are compensated by other; his death isn't because of his disability but [[spoiler:he's been infected with Gorn eggs and he decides to perform a HeroicSuicide to prevent the creatures from continuing trying to kill his crewmates]]; and his main goal in the series is to be a SacrificalLion: [[spoiler:as he's DoomedByCanon, his storyarc is for him to bond with an uncertain Cadet Nyota Uhura and guide her on the path to becoming the iconic member of the ''Enterprise'' and his LastWords are to tell her to take that risk and make more bonds rather than drift to try and not get hurt again]].