Last week was a significant one in Connecticut. On March 20, the Public Health Committee of the Connecticut legislature held a hearing on H.B. 6645, which would legalize assisted suicide in that state. NDY board member and Director of Second Thoughts Massachusetts John Kelly testified in opposition to the bill. Here’s a link to the press release that gives more info on the hearing and Kelly’s testimony.
In addition to Kelly, other disability activists were on hand, as evidenced in the links, videos, and pictures below:
Connecticut Post: General Assembly mulls state-sanctioned suicide:
HARTFORD — The General Assembly is considering the difficult question of whether a dying person should be allowed to legally take his or her own life with the help of a doctor.
The Legislature’s Public Health Committee on Wednesday listened to hours of testimony — mostly in opposition — to a bill that would allow physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.
“This is a ticket to murder,” said John Kelly, director of Second Thoughts, a Massachusetts group that last year helped defeat a similar law in the Bay State.
“This amounts to a government recommendation that sometimes death is the best answer. Doctors make mistakes. Under this bill, a diagnosis can become deadly,” Kelly said.
Elaine Kolb singing, playing guitar and talking; Connecticut disability activist Cathy Ludlum to her right.
My thanks to everyone who worked so hard to be there to let the legislature hear about our opposition to the bill. My apologies for taking this long to put up a blog post about it. If anyone has other links, wants to give names to some of the other people in the videos, etc. – please just write me and I’ll edit the additional info in.