The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) has long opposed assisted suicide. This section on their website under “What We Believe” explains why:
“There are a lot of practices in medicine that discriminate against disabled people. Some hospitals won’t give organ transplants or other life-saving medical treatments to people with disabilities. They don’t see it as “worth the effort” to try to keep us alive. Some doctors even help disabled people die from suicide instead of trying to help save our lives. They might try to convince disabled people that suicide is the best option for us. ASAN believes disabled lives are worth living. Doctors need to focus on making our lives better instead of acting like we are better off dead.
Medical research can also treat disabled lives like they are worth less than non-disabled lives. An example of this is Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). QALYs try to calculate the “value” of each year of life based on what disabilities a person has. For example, the value of each year of a non-disabled person’s life is 1, but someone with a disability will always have a number that is less than 1. This measure isn’t fair to people with disabilities. Our lives have as much value as non-disabled people’s lives. Research should focus on how to accommodate us instead of devaluing us.”
The “Healthcare” section on this page has a lot of valuable insight about healthcare policies aligned with disability justice principles. You can read more here.