Belated Note: Diane Coleman’s Letter Published in Finger Lakes Times

[From August 28, 2023]

Assisted suicide in NY a poor idea

To the Editor:

It’s ironic that Joel Freedman’s Aug. 14 essay promoting assisted suicide laws opens by noting the need to “strengthen the rights of nursing home residents and other care-dependent people.” People are too often dumped into nursing facilities by hospitals and sometimes, sadly, by families, never to escape again, their choices taken away.

Yet Freedman’s article ignores that reality and claims that assisted suicide laws only operate in the context of individuals who can count on the privileges of loving families, covered healthcare treatments, and quality palliative care.

I’m a disabled person who uses a breathing mask and motorized wheelchair and just turned 70. I’m still working, partly to pay for the uncovered care I need. I know two individuals, both African American women, who dealt with severe pain for at least two years before doctors were forced to recognize their mistakes and take steps to address the damage done.

Studies on healthcare disparities demonstrate that the system cannot be trusted to provide equal treatments without regard to race, disability, or age. More specifically in the context of assisted suicide laws, doctors cannot reliably predict how long we have to live, nor are they privy to the family pressures to “get on with it” that may arise behind closed doors.

Doctors are gifted to be able to save lives, but there are too many failures and economic pressures in the healthcare system to add assisted suicide to the treatment list.

DIANE COLEMAN

Rochester [NY]