CT Disability Activists Garner Amazing Amount of Coverage From Dueling Press Conferences

On Wednesday, November 18, disability activists from Second Thoughts Connecticut as well as members of Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide participated in a press conference held by a broad alliance of assisted suicide opponents. The media event was held in response to a previous press conference conducted by assisted suicide proponents the same day.

Below are excerpts about and quotes from disability advocates, many of them featuring Second Thoughts CT leader Cathy Ludlum:

Opponents also held a press conference in the Legislative Office Building, where they called on legislators to reject the bill. Instead, they said the legislature should focus on improving hospice care.

Cathy Ludlum, a disability rights advocate with spinal muscular atrophy, said many of the concerns often cited in end-of-life debates stem from issues that some people with disabilities live with every day, like loss of autonomy or loss of dignity. 

“Supporters often say each person is just one bad death away from becoming a proponent. I say if you had to fight for preventative care, aggressive treatment and sometimes for your life in the health care system the way we do, you might well come to our side instead,” Ludlum said. “The push for assisted suicide is not about pain. It’s about loss. It’s about fear of disability.”

Public Health Committee Raises Aid in Dying Bill (CT News Junkie, 01/19/23)

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…Others say the bill would have a negative impact on people with disabilities.

Nancy Alisberg, a disability rights lawyer at the time, was representing a 14-year-old boy who developed a severe form of leukemia. The boy also had an intellectual disability.

She says the doctors didn’t want to treat him as they thought he wouldn’t understand why he was suffering from the chemotherapy and that treatment would impair what residual intellectual capacity he had.

“What this incident showed me was that his life, as a person with an intellectual disability, was not worth living,” said Alisberg. “I feel that the laws on assisted suicide do not protect people with disabilities, and that they are going to be put into positions where they are being made to feel that they are an onus to their family, an onus to society, and they might as well just commit suicide. For that reason, I came to oppose physician-assisted suicide.” …

Advocates For and Against Medical Aid in Dying Speak Out (NBC Connecticut, 01/19/23)

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In a dueling press conference, opponents from the Connecticut Alliance Against Assisted Suicide also spoke out. They say the change in the law could create a threat to people with disabilities who could be taken advantage of for their estates….

….Opponents from the Connecticut Alliance Against Assisted Suicide say the lethal cocktail has not been tested.

“These drugs are being used outside of the scope and are experimental at best,” said Dr. Rebecca Henderson, End of Life Care.

They add lawmakers should focus on palliative care and hospice care.

“The push for assisted suicide is not about pain,” said Cathy Ludlow, Advocate for Disabled. “It’s about loss. It’s about fear of disability.”

Lawmakers consider bill to allow aid in dying in Connecticut (News 8 WTNH, 01/18/23)

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Critics of the aid-in-dying  — which include religious organizations and disability rights groups — have argued that even with robust protections, aid-in-dying laws in other jurisdictions have inevitably led to abuses and expansions to include patients who have not been diagnosed with terminal diseases.

“The ostensible safeguards in the legislation here in Connecticut are now called barriers in other states including Oregon and Washington, and are being removed through legislation and the court process,” said Cathy Ludlum, a disability rights advocate from Manchester.

‘It’s hard to keep coming back’: Advocates make push to legalize aid-in-dying in CT (CT Insider & CT Public Radio, 01/18/23)

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DISABILITY RIGHTS ACTIVIST Cathy Ludlum and other opponents from the Connecticut Alliance Against Assisted Suicide spoke out against establishing a process for terminally ill patients in Connecticut to legally access life-ending medications.

“Once again, assisted suicide is bad medicine. It is bad public policy and it is bad for people,” said Ludlum, a leader of Second Thoughts Connecticut, grassroots group of disabled people and allies that opposes an end-of-life option.

State legislators debate assisted suicide again (Republican-American, 01/18/23)

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“The push for assisted suicide is not about pain,” said Cathy Ludlum with Second Thoughts Connecticut, which has fought the legislation for years. “It’s about loss; it’s about fear of disability.”

Families make another push for legal ‘medical aid in dying’ in Connecticut (News 12 Westchester, 01/18/23)

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“Assisted suicide cannot and will not stay limited to a select population,” said Cathy Ludlum, a disabilities rights advocate and staunch opponent of medically assisted suicide.

Ludlum said the eventual elimination of safeguards and expansion of medically assisted suicide is inevitable once legislation legalizes the practice. She called the proposed bill “bad medicine, bad public policy, and bad for people.”

“Supporters often say, ‘Each person is just one bad death away from becoming a proponent.’ I say, ‘If you had to fight for preventative care, aggressive treatment, and sometimes for your life in the health care system the way we do, you would likely join us on the opposing side,’” Ludlum said. “The push for assisted suicide is not about pain, it’s about loss. It’s about fear of disability.”

Connecticut again considering controversial medically assisted aid-in-dying measure (Hartford Courant, 01/18/23)

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But many of the people present at the Capitol were disability advocates who feared that the bill would become a tool for a healthcare system that did not want to pay for costly treatment for disabled individuals.

“Assisted suicide cannot and will not stay limited to a select population. The ostensible safeguards in legislation here in Connecticut are now called barriers in other states, including Oregon and Washington, and are being removed through legislation or the court process,” said Cathy Ludlum, a resident of Manchester and a leader of a group of disabled individuals who are against the legislation.

Somers also referenced Canada, which has come under scrutiny for potential abuses of euthanasia.

Stalled for a Decade, Bill to Allow Assisted Suicide Gets a Hearing in the Legislature (CT Examiner, 01/18/23)

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Addendum:

“The question is how many struggling people will follow their lead, pressured by society and assisted by the health-care system to die,” Cathy Ludlum, of Second Thoughts Connecticut – a grassroots organization that opposes assisted suicide – said during a legislative hearing last year.

Creeping into the moral abyss (Republican-American, 01/24/23)