A High Quad Defends the Quality of Life--
Kevorkian Argues I Would be Better Off Dead Than Alive

Date: 10-01-96
In defending his participation in the suicides of some 41 people, Dr. Jack Kevorkian has asked his critics to consider the quality of life for high quads living on ventilators. Mark O'Brien offers his own evaluation as a quadriplegic who spends all but one or two hours a week in an iron lung.

A Quack Remedy for the Terminally Ill

Date: 3-24-95
In recent months the movement to legalize physician-aided suicide has scored impressive wins in Oregon and Washington state. That's a bone-chilling message for some severely disabled people who may now find themselves defined as "terminally ill." PNS contributing editor Mark O'Brien is a Berkeley-based writer and poet who lives in an iron lung.

Why Our Real Stories Never Get Told --
News Media Damn Disabled People With Faint Praise

Date: 12-22-94
Able-bodied journalists express curiosity and sympathy about disabled people but when it comes down to doing stories about them, invariably the news media highlight their "heroic" qualities -- ignoring their far more mundane and pragmatic concerns. PNS commentator Mark O'Brien is a poet and writer based in Berkeley, Ca., who spends most of his days in an iron lung.

Reflections on Baseball From an Iron Lung

Date: 10-21-94
Baseball for a boy paralyzed from the neck down was a metaphor for the childhood he would never have. But it also became his hobby, his favorite sport, his great teacher. From his iron lung, the writer, now in his mid-40s, offers his eulogy for the baseball season that never was. Mark O'Brien is a writer and poet living in Berkeley, California.

The Disabled Push for Liberation from Nursing Homes

Date: 02-02-93
Having gained historic victories in their push for greater public access, disabled activists are taking on a new demand for self-determination for those severely disabled confined to nursing homes. PNS contributor Mark O'Brien, a freelance writer and poet based in Berkeley, Ca., has been paralyzed from the neck down since childhood. O'Brien regularly reports on issues involving disabled people.

California's Governor Has Decided I am Useless

Date: 10-23-92
The most sinister aspect of California Governor Pete Wilson's Proposition 165, which would slash payments to those defined as tax consumers rather than tax producers, is that it judges people according to their economic utility. If it is passed, quadriplegic Mark O'Brien would be judged worthless, condemned (like the majority of disabled Americans) to the dead-end solution of TV watching in a nursing home. O'Brien is a writer whose book of poetry, "Breathing," was published by LittleDog Press (Austin) in 1990.

Mark with friend Susan Fernbach.