By Lisa Blumberg, JD In 2014, in connection with whether assisted suicide laws would ever be expanded to include people with cognitive decline, Barbara Coombs Lee, then director of Compassion & Choices, said, “It is an issue for another day but is no less compelling.” This was a momentary slip. The political strategy of Compassion […]
For Immediate Release: October 26, 2014 Contact: Anita Cameron, 720-369-6983 Dawn Russell, 303-884-1471 Disability Rights Activists Protest Compassion and Choices President Visit Boulder, CO – Disability rights activists from Not Dead Yet and ADAPT are protesting the visit to the West Boulder Senior Center of Compassion and Choices President, Barbara Coombs Lee. Coombs Lee is […]
[Editor’s Note: The PRWeb version of this Press Statement is available online in pdf format here.] Not Dead Yet and Second Thoughts, disability rights groups that oppose legalization of assisted suicide, issue the following Statement in support of Dr. Ira Byock’s role in the public policy debate spurred by the Brittany Maynard case: “Dr. Ira […]
There’s a major problem with shows hosted by medical professionals. On the one hand, viewers are encouraged to believe that due to the professional credentials of the host, any discussion of a complicated topic treated on that show is going to meet some kind of high professional standard. The truth is, though, that such shows […]
While Compassion and Choices is gearing up for a new year of assisted suicide advocacy, its President, Barbara Coombs Lee, has announced that their proposed legislation will no longer include the “needless and intrusive burden of government reporting.” I’ve always had problems with the Oregon “Death With Dignity Act” Reports, and now the Washington Reports […]
You’d never know it’s National Suicide Prevention Week (Sept. 4 – 10), or that Saturday, Sept. 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day. But then again, as I’ve written before, it’s been increasingly clear that the Suicide Prevention Community has washed its hands of old, ill and disabled people – and surrendered at risk individuals in […]
Two interesting and fairly unusual related things happened over the last two weeks. First, CNN reporter Elizabeth Landau contacted both NDY and the National Council on Disability (NCD) for interviews in connection to a story on assisted suicide. This was surprising considering that when CNN ran a mini-media tour with Jack Kevorkian during the promotion […]
Not exactly a big surprise, but Compassion and Choices (aka “Conflation & Con Jobs“) has weighed in on the disappointing outcome of the trial of Final Exit Network (FEN) members in Arizona. I am cynical enough to believe that reporters who use this press release from the organization are too shallow, lazy or generally lacking […]
On Monday of this week (May 10), there was one of those all-too-familiar tragedies that appear in the news on a regular basis. In the one of the earliest and most comprehensive articles covering the story, reporter Ann DeMatteo wrote an article titled “North Haven deaths believed to be murder-suicide“: NORTH HAVEN — A well-known […]
On Monday, June 8, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an op-ed by bioethicist Art Caplan. Expressing his concern over the news that Al Pacino plans to play Jack Kevorkian in a movie for HBO, Caplan thought it was time to do some preemptive truth-telling about Jack Kevorkian. His commentary is titled “The truth: Kevorkian was less […]
