Access Press in Minnesota recently carried two excellent articles by disability advocates written in response to an earlier article by Marianne Turnbull, who is seriously ill with ovarian cancer, in support of an assisted suicide bill.
Kathy Ware is an RN and parent of an adult son with disabilities. Here’s an excerpt from her article:
The [National] Council on Disability came out with a report on October 9 about the dangers of assisted suicide laws for people with disabilities. The council clearly opposes medical assisted suicide in this extensive report. There are many national disability rights groups that oppose prescribing suicide including but not limited to ADAPT, American Association of People with Disabilities, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, National Council on Independent Living, TASH and Arc of the United States.
My 25-year-old son Kylen and I also testified at the recent Minnesota hearing on prescribed suicide. Kylen has quadriplegic cerebral palsy, profound cognitive disabilities, intractable epilepsy, chronic pain, and multiple other medical disabilities. I have been a registered nurse for 20 years. I have been a disability rights activist for 25 years. I am vehemently opposed to doctor and nurse-prescribed suicide.
The End of Life Options Act was based on “Death with Dignity” in Oregon. These are the top five reasons people ask their doctors to help them commit suicide: loss of autonomy, being unable to participate in activities that make life enjoyable, loss of dignity, loss of bodily functions and becoming a burden on family and friends and caregivers. The statistics kept for more than 20 years proves fear of pain or inadequate pain control is not mentioned in the top five reasons.
The top five rationale are descriptions of my son and other Minnesotans with disabilities. Able-bodied people cannot tolerate the prospect of becoming a person with a disability and developing dependencies on another person. They are so appalled at the loss of “dignity” this dependency brings that suicide is preferable to disability. It goes like this, “I would rather die right now by a prescription for suicide than to lose all dignity and turn into one of those people with disabilities for six months or less.” Doctor and nurse-prescribed suicide for these rationale supports the doctrine of better off dead than disabled. The assisted suicide bills devalue the life of my son and his peers.
To read Kathy Ware’s article in full, go here.
John Kelly’s article further explains:
Assisted suicide looks good when considered from a sympathetic individual like Marianne, but looking at the larger picture, it becomes clear that assisted suicide is too dangerous.
Assisted suicide inevitably takes the lives of non-dying people: 12 to 15 percent of “terminal” people admitted to hospice outlive their six-month prognosis, sometimes by years and decades. Actress Valerie Harper, who died last month, was given mere months to live 6 ½ years ago.
Doctors make mistakes!
Assisted suicide proponents like Marianne frame the issue as one of autonomy and personal choice, but in our vastly unequal society, choice is terribly constrained.
For example, more than half of Oregon program deaths in 2018 were reported by their doctors to “feel like a burden” on family and caregivers. In the absence of funded home care for all, it’s hardly a choice when the alternative to being a burden is either impoverishment and a nursing home, or assisted suicide. . . .
Adding assisted suicide to our broken, discriminatory health system makes for a deadly mix. As the cheapest “treatment” for serious illness, assisted suicide fattens insurers’ profits and crowds out more expensive treatment.
In Nevada, Dr. Brian Callister has reported that two of his patients were denied an often curative but costly therapy. Medical directors of the health insurance companies told him that they would only cover hospice and assisted suicide. . . .
To read John Kelly’s article in full, go here.
John, one of the points you make is very important for people to think about. Doctors can only guess how long someone will live with a “terminal” illness. We all know people who have outlived their estimate. Living a few months or a number of years – well, that would be true of anyone who isn’t sick or disabled.
Good job.