[Editor’s note: To read the whole Submission, go here.]
Submission to the New Zealand Parliament’s Justice Committee
re: End of Life Choice Bill
March 5, 2018
Introduction
Not Dead Yet is a national, grassroots disability rights group that opposes legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia as deadly forms of discrimination against old, ill and disabled people. Formed by disabled people in 1996, Not Dead Yet helps organize and articulate opposition to these practices in the United States based on secular social justice arguments. Not Dead Yet also demands the equal protection of the law for the targets of so called “mercy killing” whose lives are seen as worth-less. Since our founding, autonomous sister organizations have been formed in a number of other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.
This submission concerns the New Zealand Parliament’s End of Life Choice bill. We strongly oppose this bill, which supports assisted suicide and euthanasia, thus proposing to carve older, ill and disabled people out of equal protection of the law. This submission will first examine the social-political context in which this and similar bills arise. Next, we will discuss the evidence from Oregon, the earliest of the five U.S. states and District of Columbia to legalize assisted suicide, focusing on official data that substantiates critics’ concerns. Finally, we will outline specific concerns of the disability community, which have resulted in all major U.S. national disability organizations that have taken a position on the issue deciding to oppose assisted suicide laws.
Regarding the specific provisions of New Zealand’s End of Life Choice bill, we fully endorse the submission of our Canadian sister organization, Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, which provides a section by section analysis of the bill in Part 3 of its submission. We will not repeat that here.
The most horrific reality of this bill is that no disabled person, whether their condition is new or long standing, and no seriously ill person, whether their condition is chronic or terminal, can allow common fears, sadness, depression or despair overtake them, because if they do, the government and medical system will be ready, willing and able to speak the words and check off the boxes required to kill them. This is blatant discrimination at its most deadly, cruel bigotry dressed up to look like compassion when it is really contempt.
Disabled people demand equality under the law. Regardless of our abilities or disabilities, none of us should feel that we have to die to have dignity, that we have to die to be relieved of pain, or that we should die to stop burdening our families or society. The proposed End of Life Choice bill must be rejected.
The Social and Political Context In Which Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Bills Arise
There are four key social-political factors that are central to the assisted suicide and euthanasia issue, but are too often ignored or downplayed:
- Healthcare cost cutting
- Fear of the aging demographic
- Fear of disability
- Deceptive political framing
Healthcare Cost Cutting
Never has there been more hand wringing over the growing costs of healthcare than we see today. On a worldwide basis, whether paid by private insurance or government programs, there are worried statements that this growth is not sustainable, all coming from professionals who have healthcare themselves. Meanwhile, those who struggle to get the healthcare they need face the threat of more cuts. In the U.S., this led to repeated protests and arrests of disability activists throughout last summer as conservatives proposed massive life threatening healthcare cuts.[i]
When legislators hear that people are dying in pain, the first thing they should ask is why have they not received the palliative care they need to relieve their pain. In these times, no one need die in pain, even in the rare cases in which sedation is the only method that works.[ii] When legislators hear that people feel like a burden on loved ones, they should ask why sufficient home care supports are not provided to meet their needs.
Instead of ensuring that people receive the healthcare they need, too many legislators are asking why doctors can’t speed patients to an early death. A chapter called “The Unspoken Argument” in a book co-authored by Derek Humphrey, co-founder of the Hemlock Society and long time leader within the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, stated:
“Similar to other social issues, the right-to-die movement has not arisen separate and distinct from other concurrent developments of our time. In attempting to answer the question Why Now?, one must look at the realities of the increasing cost of health care in an aging society, because in the final analysis, economics, not the quest for broadened individual liberties or increased autonomy, will drive assisted suicide to the plateau of acceptable practice.” Humphrey and Clement (2000) Freedom to Die: people, politics, and the right-to-die movement. (Emphasis added.)
This is an unacceptable basis for public policy decisions.
[i] “Arresting Disabled Bodies,” New Republic, Sept. 28, 2017, https://newrepublic.com/article/145072/arresting-disabled-bodies; “Dozens arrested after disability advocates protest at McConnell’s office,” CNN, June 22, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/22/politics/protests-mitch-mcconnell-office-health-care-bill/index.html; “If You Celebrated the Health Care Vote Last Week, You Should Probably Thank a Disability Activist,” Elle, Aug. 1, 2017, https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/news/a47075/disability-activist-health-care/?src=social-email
[ii] “Ethical Decision Making With End-of-Life Care: Palliative Sedation and Withholding or Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatments,” Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Oct. 2010, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947968/