Massachusetts: Assisted Suicide Bill Hearing Tomorrow – Interesting Quotes from Paul Spiers

Last Friday, we got word that the Massachusetts legislature would be holding a hearing on an assisted suicide bill tomorrow – February 23.  Here’s the full info (received on Friday) with a link to the bill:

The Joint Committee on the Judiciary of the Massachusetts General Court (state legislature) has just announced that House Bill 1468, An Act Relative to Death with Dignity, will be on the docket for a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, February 23, 2010 (next week), to be held at 1 pm in Room B1 at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

We contacted disability activists in the state.  Even with such short notice, we should have at least one activist offering testimony at the hearing tomorrow.  Hopefully, that can be shared here later this week.

Earlier today, the Boston Herald published a short article about the hearing.  We received a call from reporter Laurel Sweet yesterday afternoon and gave her contact info for a couple of disability activists – apparently she was unsuccessful in reaching one of them in time to make the deadline for her article.   She did get a couple of short quotes from a local pro-assisted suicide advocate and they make for interesting reading and interpretation:

Professor Paul Spiers of Danvers, who teaches forensic neuropsychology at Boston University, became an advocate of the right-to-die movement after a 1994 horseback riding accident left him paralyzed from the chest down.

Before we get to the quotes, I found it interesting that there were certain things that this article doesn’t say about Spiers. 

For example, Spiers isn’t described as “the president of the board of Autonomy, Inc.”  Autonomy, Inc. calls itself a disability rights group but limits its activities to signing briefs in assisted suicide cases.  I don’t know what position Spiers holds now or what the status of “Autonomy, Inc.” is – it has disappeared from the web.  The name of the group is featured on an amicus brief filed in the Baxter v. Montana case last year. But “Autonomy” itself has vanished.  Compassion and Choices includes him on their Speakers list, but they don’t mention “Autonomy, Inc. there, either.  I’m beginning to suspect that the “organization” exists only on paper for the sole purpose of enabling Compassion and Choices to file a “disability” amicus brief in court cases that come up.

FYI, NDY also filed a brief in that case.  The brief, available in rtf format here, was filed on behalf on Not Dead Yet, ADAPT, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, National Council on Independent Living, and the National Spinal Cord Injury Association.

You might recognize those organizations.  Unlike Autonomy, they are actual disability rights organizations.

Now, for the quotes from Spiers:

“It becomes important when you’re looking at life in a wheelchair, but it’s the one choice we don’t have,” Spiers said.

In spite of years of protestations to the contrary, Spiers’ statement strongly implies he is endorsing suicide assistance, not just for the “terminally ill,” but for people with non-terminal and relatively stable disabilities – such as spinal cord injury.  Maybe he feels the time is right to be more open about his personal agenda for legalization.

More from Spiers:

“We’re kinder to our pets than we are to people. You should be able to die peacefully in the company of your family and friends.”

It could be that Spiers is unfamiliar with the grim realities of pet euthanasia.  Or, like most people, he maintains a fantasy about why we end the lives of our beloved pets – even though many – maybe most – aren’t dying and in significant pain.  More likely, they are too much bother to take care of, they’re peeing on the carpet, or too expensive to treat medically.  It could be – like most people – he’s not applying critical thinking to why we actually kill our pets – reasons that have a lot to do with our own wants and needs rather than the animal’s.

For more on the less-than-romantic realities of pet euthanasia, read this article that I coauthored with Dick Sobsey.  –Stephen Drake

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