AM New York interviewed advocates on both sides of the assisted suicide issue at the all day hearing held in New York City on May 3, 2018. Here are the disability quotes:
Opponents of the bill have expressed concerns for the disabled community and what they say is a tendency for medical professionals to underestimate their will to live. Opponents also say medical professionals assume that the patient would rather die than incur debt.
“Doctors tend to devalue our lives, tend to feel that we don’t have quality of life when we feel that we do,” said Anita Cameron, director of minority outreach for Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group fighting against assisted suicide. Cameron suffers from multiple sclerosis, congenital cerebellar ataxia, and diabetes. She said she knows one of her diseases “is going to take her life” and lives in pain, but can’t see herself ending her own life. “I don’t want to die, I have way too much to live for,” said Cameron.
Another concern is that a doctor’s word on how long a patient has left is often not correct. Multiple people, including Cameron, testified Thursday that their loved ones far outlived their doctor’s expectations.
Jose Hernandez, 38, said his mother lived for 13 years after she was diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer in 1988. “There was 13 birthdays, 13 Christmases, 13 Thanksgivings that would have not happened if this medication was available,” said Hernandez. “I wouldn’t have been able to share those precious moments with my mother.”
To read the rest of the article, go here.
We’re hoping to feature more of the excellent disability advocates’ testimonies from the hearing, but for now, we have:
Testimony of Anita Cameron On Behalf of NDY Opposing New York Assisted Suicide Bill A2383A http://notdeadyet.org/testimony-of-anita-cameron-opposing-new-york-assisted-suicide-bill-a2383a
Testimony of Stephanie Woodward On Behalf of ADAPT Opposing New York Assisted Suicide Bill A2383A Stephanie Woodward’s Testimony for ADAPT Opposing NY Assisted Suicide Bills (05/03/18) (PDF Version)
Today I am fraught because–well, I know that the opposition might be reading this, so I might as well just aim my genteel invective thusly: legislators of the inner Pacific Rim, I really don’t care if you hold innate fears of lethal pain or just want to click selfies at the edge of Kiluea volcano as you someday feed yourselves to Goddess Pali. The fact of the matter is that many current political and social leaders there in Hawaii have been bamboozled in the same way that the other Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) states have been since the late 1990’s. During the bill writing process, did you folks or your legislative aides out there ever ask the other seven states about what to do if there’s any complaints against anyone who tries to coerce or conspire to get a patient enrolled in the new bureaucracy that will “manage and police” active euthanasia? Has no pollster ever conducted a carefully worded survey to assess the magnitude of which models of PAS would be and wouldn’t be acceptable to Hawaiians? No? Well, that’s dumb; maybe the citizens and residents of the State of New York will be able to do what you could not do under your famous Aloha spirit…and that is to run away from the Our Care Our Choice Act of 2018 like it’s spoiled Poke (fish salad) and treat your OHANA (family) with kindness like Father Damien, who, in 1873, settled on Molokai to serve and inspire the lives of 750 Hansen’s disease sufferers. And to this day at Kalawao there are isolated patients there at the wild peninsula below the highest cliffs in Polynesia. Did anyone go survey them about their need for PAS state agency help? Maybe that would have been an ironic joke to those villagers abiding by the tremulous Pacific: you see, Hansen’s disease is leprosy. Accordingly, it seems possible that with the legacy shared by Saint Damien de Veuster there can be renewed Aloha Spiritual gifts sent to abide in the hearts of New Yorkers far across the seas.. https://www.nps.gov/kala/learn/historyculture/damien.htm