By now, many who read this message will know that Bill Peace died not long after midnight this morning. In the hours since, the outpouring of both grief over our loss and celebration of his life is nothing short of incredible. He has been one of an increasingly rare breed of academics who embrace disability […]
Lisa Blumberg is an attorney and disability activist in Connecticut. Her op-ed, Why the disability community opposes doctor assisted suicide, appeared today in the New Haven Register. Here are some excerpts. People who have always been able to get the healthcare they want may assume assisted suicide is a choice issue, but persons who have struggled […]
2010 was a horrible year for friend and NDY board member Bill Peace. Here’s a summary from a post back in 2012: Back in 2010, our friend, colleague and ally Bill Peace, experienced a long, expensive health crisis when he experienced a stage IV skin breakdown – with a long treatment process that was physically and emotionally grueling by his […]
NDY board member Bill Peace has been writing more on his blog Bad Cripple. Two of his recent posts last 2 touch directly on NDY concerns. In You Can’t do That, he describes the ways in which individuals and society focus hard on what he “can’t” do: The instant negativity attached to disability is raised […]
[Editor’s Note: This Guest Blog is from Stephen Mendelsohn, one of the leaders of Second Thoughts Connecticut.] This is likely a first from the mainstream suicide prevention community: The Connecticut Suicide Advisory Board (CTSAB) recognizes that legalizing assisted suicide encourages people with disabilities to commit suicide. Here’s the relevant excerpt from the State of Connecticut Suicide […]
Months of work came to fruition on April 25 – 26, 2014 at the Crystal City Marriott in Arlington, VA. Conference planning experts told us to expect a 10% no show rate, but out of our final count of 68 who signed up to attend (we had initially expected about 50), only 3 missed it. […]
I meant to get this all up a little earlier, but life and exhaustion interfered a little with those plans. Below are links to coverage and commentary I recommend highly regarding the Stephen Hawking/assisted suicide kerfuffle: On Wednesday, September 18th, I participated in a 10-minute live exchange with Barbara Coombs Lee of Compassion and Choices. […]
Vermont Assisted Suicide Bill Allows a Third Party to Speak for an Elder or Disabled Person S. 77, the assisted suicide bill passed by the Vermont State Senate on Wednesday, endangers disabled people, elderly people and ill people. The Vermont House should reconsider its earlier support of the legislation and work to protect the […]
It’s been a few days since an update on Amanda Baggs and her struggle to get past medical discrimination and get appropriate medical treatment has been shared here. The good news is that the news of her scheduled surgery was true and her feeding tube is now in place. Now the bad news: In “So […]
I plan to put out a couple more posts today if my energy holds out. There is a lot happening this week. I think the first order of business is the rolling media nightmare unfolding in regard to Tomas Young. (Apologies to all about the misspelling of his name – many folks writing on the […]
