Some Choose to Stay Blind.

Affordable implants have given blind people across the world access to the cure; even impoverished communities will be able to cover the costs of the procedure with less than a month’s worth of their disability benefits. Here in the U.K., the implants come free on the NHS. With such easy access to a cure, M.P. 's this morning announced a steep reduction in benefits for blind people, declaring that it is now “a choice to be blind.” 

It is no secret that the benefits cut is designed to pressure the remaining blind community into going through with the procedure. Before the implants, blind people in the U.K. accounted for 3% of the population, - today, figures estimate less than 0.8%. Outspoken M.P.’s have labeled the remaining blind community ‘difficult’ for avoiding the cure. 

“The choice to be blind also happens to be a choice to stay at home and live off of taxpayer's money. It is a choice not to work, a choice not to contribute. It is the choice to take, and take, and take.”

The blind community made up the majority of protesters camped outside of Westminster this morning.

“This isn’t about the money,” one campaigner told us, “...being blind is who I am. It’s my identity. It’s my life. I was born this way, and I have every right to stay this way! This is an attack on our community.”

The blind protesters all shared the belief that the benefit cut is an attack on their identity. They said that they are happy being blind, happy with their lives, and all downplayed the sympathetic narrative that some M.P.'s have pedaled when arguing that the implants alleviate an otherwise “difficult life.”

 “My life is not difficult, I have been blind since my teens. I do not want to be part of the seeing world, and nor should I be made to be!”

The campaigning people’s message is this: blindness is not a disability. The blind are a people, they are a culture.  “The government is committing cultural genocide!” - they claim. 

The benefit cuts are expected to close most of the remaining blind schools and force many blind people off disability benefits. With these extra stresses, most blind people are expected to seek out the cure. Experts suggest such a change will effectively wipe out blindness in the U.K. in less than five years.