Not Dead Yet works with disability organizations around the nation in the fight against doctor assisted suicide.
One of these organizations is ADAPT, a national, grassroots disability rights organization working to ensure the civil rights, liberty and freedom of disabled people of all ages to live in our own homes in the community, rather than in nursing facilities or institutions.
ADAPT is in strong solidarity with Not Dead Yet that doctor assisted suicide is bad public policy. In fact, over 20 years ago, ADAPT was the first national disability group to join NDY in protests against “Dr. Death” (Jack Kevorkian) and in a friend of the court brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Why? Because ADAPT understands that people seeking the suicide drugs in Oregon cited loss of autonomy, feelings of being a burden, loss of the ability to engage in activities, loss of the ability to control bodily functions and loss of dignity as the top reasons for wanting to die. These are disability issues, not just terminal illness issues. Attendant care services and other supports in one’s home are the solution to this, not doctor assisted suicide!
ADAPT knows that assisted suicide sets up a two-tiered system of suicide prevention where non-disabled folks who express suicidal feelings receive suicide prevention services, while older, disabled and sick people are encouraged to seek doctor assisted suicide. The California legislature just passed AB 282 directly saying that it’s okay to “encourage” people to request assisted suicide!
ADAPT realizes that as assisted suicide spreads to states with diverse populations, Blacks, people of color and poor people will be especially vulnerable to assisted suicide due to disparities in healthcare delivery, including discrimination in prevention, treatment and pain relief.
ADAPT is aware that insurance companies are concerned about their bottom line. It’s all about the money. It’s far less expensive to kill someone than to care for them. Insurance companies in Oregon and California, where doctor assisted suicide is legal, have already denied patients lifesaving cancer treatments and offered assisted suicide instead.
For these and other reasons, ADAPT is firmly in solidarity with Not Dead Yet in vehemently opposing doctor assisted suicide. Access to services and supports at home, counseling and palliative care should be available to those who need it, rather than assisted suicide.
ADAPT is also working hard to promote the Disability Integration Act (HR 2472 and S 910) which would give people with disabilities and seniors the civil right to receive attendant services and other supports at home, instead of in institutions. It addresses many of the concerns of those who would feel they have no option but assisted suicide by assisting people to live, for whatever time they have, rather than assisting them to die.