Testimony of Meghan Schrader
Joint Committee on Public Health
H.2246 / S.1331
An Act Relative to end-of-life options
October 20, 2023
As a disability rights advocate I stand strongly opposed to H.2264 and all efforts to legalize “Medical Aid in Dying” in the United States.
-I teach people with intellectual disabilities at the University of Texas and have published research on eugenics and assisted suicide. Before that I lived in Massachusetts for 35 years.
-A disabled Canadian friend of mine with
PTSD was subjected to further wounding trauma when a suicide prevention hotline operator told her that she should consider killing herself with “MAiD.” Today’s bill would lay the scaffolding for the proponents to build that same world.
-The United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Rights of People with Disabilities says that even assisted suicide laws that are limited to the terminally ill violate its Convention on The Rights of People with Disabilities https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2021/01/disability-not-reason-sanction-medically-assisted-dying-un-experts
Compassion and Choices has acknowledged that an eating disorder specialist published a case study about helping people with eating disorders kill themselves with “MAiD,” (https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2022.11.9.4 , https://www.compassionandchoices.org/news/colorado-response ), but then it’s representatives say that these laws have never been abused. So, has the law been abused or not? As someone with an eating disorder who may have no choice but to seek treatment from people like the opportunist who wrote that case study in the future, I want to know which one it is.
Harvard Medical School disgustingly invited the director of Canada’s euthanasia program to come talk to them about how much she loves her job killing disabled people; her book is in my University’s library. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LtysjDKxmLg&t=8s&pp=ygUmSGFydmFyZCBNZWRpY2FsIFNjaG9vbCBzdGVwaGFuaWUgZ3JlZW4%3D
-Thaddeus Mason Pope tweeted to me that he thinks it’s good for disabled people to die by suicide. https://twitter.com/ThaddeusPope/status/1669450726831976449 The director of Compassion and Choices appeared on Dr. Phil with Thaddeus Mason Pope in January of 2023.
-In January of 2023 the New York Hastings Center tweeted out an essay about how great it is that disabled Canadians are killing themselves and giving their internal organs away. https://twitter.com/hastingscenter/status/1618030388542148608 The USA right to die movement has a very cavalier attitude towards traumatizing people in the disabled community.
The American Association of Suicidology made a 2017 statement saying that “MAiD” was not suicide. But in 2023 the AAS had to retract that statement https://suicidology.org/2023/03/08/aas-update-on-previous-statement/ because it was used in the 2019 Truchon decision that expanded assisted suicide to disabled Canadians. https://twitter.com/TrudoLemmens/status/1666067817035190272 , which was opposed by the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. https://suicideprevention.ca/media/statement-on-recent-maid-developments/ The consequences of the AAS’s statement are an example of how green lighting assisted suicide for the terminally ill easily results in violence against people with disabilities.
Disabled people already experience a higher rate of suicide than the general population and peer-reviewed research indicates that people are more likely to think suicide is acceptable if the victim has a disability. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26402344/ Passing these laws clearly further normalizes the sentiment that disabled people’s suicides might be a good thing, and that’s a monstrous way for society to bully people in the disabled community.
-Vigilantly safeguarding equality and justice for people with disabilities as a group is more important than the proponents’ individual autonomy. Do not pass this bill.