NYAIL is the New York Association on Independent Living, a statewide, not-for-profit membership association created by and composed of Independent Living Centers across New York State. I was honored to receive NYAIL’s 2021 David Veatch Advocacy Achievement Award on September 29th. Below are my words of gratitude spoken at their virtual conference.
Diane Coleman’s NYAIL Award Remarks
It’s such a tremendous honor and I can’t tell you how moved I am by your kind words.
NYAIL is really a role model for disability activism on the issues Not Dead Yet addresses. First, there’s the more public and recognized work in opposing assisted suicide laws. NYAIL’s policy statement is a great piece to share with legislators. NYAIL and CIL leaders like Meghan Parker and Cliff Perez have also published opinion pieces opposing these laws in mainstream newspapers, explaining the dangers they pose to people with disabilities. Many of you have testified and organized turn out in advocacy events to ensure this message is heard.
What’s less obvious is the breadth and depth of NYAIL’s and all of your work on access to healthcare and home and community based services, much of which overlaps with NDY’s efforts to ensure that life-sustaining medical treatment is never involuntarily withheld from an individual. We oppose insurers deciding who gets what care based on quality of life judgments using QALYs and similar measures. We object to healthcare providers urging the attitude of better dead than disabled as grounds for rushing to judgment and pulling the plug after an injury. And we don’t want to see despair over the struggle for in home personal care services cause people to give up hope.
As many of you know, the disability community recently lost a fierce warrior, and I lost a personal companion in this work, Marilyn Golden of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. At one point, she composed these words I’d like to share to express her reasons for devoting so much of herself to the assisted suicide issue: “If assisted suicide is legal, some people’s lives will be ended without their consent, through mistakes and abuse. No safeguards have ever been enacted or even proposed, that can prevent this outcome, which can never be undone.”
So thank you NYAIL and all of you for the privilege of working along side you and I look forward to continuing together in the fight for our lives.