Last week, Diane Coleman and I attended and participated in the Second International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, put on by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC). We were optimistic about attending based on our experiences with Alex Schadenberg, E.D. of EPC. We attended an event of EPC last year in Winnipeg with members of the Canadian disability rights community which focused on the issues of assisted suicide and euthanasia – and stayed focused across presenters.
Last week’s event was a disappointment and discouraging in terms of the feasibility of a coalition. There were simply too many representatives of organizations (Christian/prolife/conservative) that couldn’t resist bringing in other parts of their agenda.
What made this even more disappointing was that these presenters, who couldn’t stick to the shared agenda, did so knowing two things:
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The successful coalition in the United Kingdom: Dr. Peter Saunders, founder of the Care Not Killing Alliance in the U.K. described how their successful coalition worked. Everyone in the alliance stays on message. The major spokespersons of the Alliance are from the political left and the disability community. The E.D. of the coalition is an atheist, pro-choice, left-wing member of Parliament. They’ve managed to hold the line on legislation in the U.K. in the face of sympathetic coverage of assisted suicide and a well-funded pro-euthanasia movement.
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There were opponents in the audience. At least two attendees were from the other side – the pro-euthanasia movement. Their task, naturally, was to gather information to help themselves in their own advocacy.
For me, things came to a head on the first day when a representative of the LaRouchePAC stepped up to the audience question-and-answer microphone. He read a piece of crap he called “research” that labeled Obama’s health care plan (what we know so far) as a “Nazi plan.” To my disgust and horror, over half the audience broke out into applause over that.
I took Alex aside and told him that he had no idea what just happened and how bad it was. The LaRouchePAC is one of several entities attached to Lyndon LaRouche, conspiracy enthusiast. Pretty much no one of any political stripe who wants to be taken seriously becomes associated with the man or his group. (BTW, the guy from the PAC got in for free with a “media pass” – probably from his home printer, and then did the un-journalistic move of leaving promotional materials. He also didn’t ask any questions. Maybe this gives you an idea of the ethics – or lack thereof – in how they operate.)
Alex let me take the podium in response. I can’t remember everything I said, or the argument I had with the guy from the PAC. But I knew it wouldn’t be enough, especially with repeated exposure to material that had nothing to do with euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The next morning, after a brief intro of my own history – my birth and issues related to hydrocephalus growing up, I departed from my previously planned presentation, explaining that events of the past couple days had made it obvious that I needed to address serious threats to any participation by NDY in a coalition. The following is an attempt to construct my remarks from memory and notes. I am sure that parts of it are verbatim and that it doesn’t depart from the factual content. (If I get the DVD or transcript, I will no doubt find that I departed from the remarks as spoken in ways that make me sound more eloquent than I was.) For what they’re worth, here are my remarks, as best as I can recall:
“I think that a broad-based coalition is not only a good idea, it’s a necessary one. Having said that, I also have to say I’m not sure I’ll be back here. I signed on for the idea that we could all stay focused on assisted suicide and euthanasia. Yet I’ve been made to be associated with presentations that included discussions of stem cells, abortion and Roe v. Wade. I, too, have passions. I could have gone on a rant on the cost of George Bush’s war of choice in Iraq, which also dug our country into a hole budget-wise. Resulting draconian budget cuts in many states to support services for people with disabilities are a real issue – and I could have made a plausible argument for tying that to the issues we are supposed to be focusing on.
Most troubling was what occurred yesterday when someone came in from outside. Reading from a so-called “analysis,” an outsider came in here and presented a bunch of de-contextualized quotes and called it something like “Obama’s Nazi Health Care Plan.” And over half of you applauded. I don’t know why you applauded, but it’s clear none of you knew who or what you were applauding. I do – I read the so-called “analysis.” That “analysis” comes from a group that doesn’t deserve the dignity of being called “fringe” – the group has a history of latching onto one cause after another for the sole purpose of raising its own public profile and political clout.
I’d hate to think that it was the “Nazi” allegation you were applauding. It’s a comparison that discredits the person who invokes it – along with whatever cause or organization they’re associated with.
Please bear with me for a short story. For personal reasons, not religious, I find mezuzahs on the outer door frames of the house very comforting. Last year, Diane and I purchased a house. It has mezuzahs on every outer door frame. The previous owners were two people who met and married in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland. Soon after, they were among the millions of Jews taken to Concentration camps. They ended up in different camps. Miraculously, both survived. Even more miraculously, they found each other again. They moved to the States, lived and raised children.
These were but two of the victims of the greatest crime of the 20th Century. Thinking on them, have a care when you invoke or applaud Nazi comparisons. When you invoke the systematic, routinized extermination of millions of men, women and children in response to vague fears about a health plan, you turn off and offend the majority of the public. It offends me. (And, btw, I feel the same way about the use of the term “fascism” by some critics of the Bush administration – and I wasn’t a fan of that administration by a long shot.)
I’d like this U.S. coalition to work, but I’m not convinced it will. There are people here I’ve worked with before and would like to again. But there’s also a track record of ignoring or rendering invisible the very people that so many groups are eager to “protect” and “speak for.” It happened in the Robert Wendland case, in the fight for Terri Schiavo’s life and in the debate over the film “Million Dollar Baby.” In each case, there was heavy involvement by disability groups – court briefs, op-eds, protests. But in each case, those voices were overrun by “culture warriors” with our “allies” as willing to pretend we didn’t exist as our opponents. You can’t blame it on a “liberal press” either – Fox News was as guilty as anyone else in terms of pretending we didn’t exist.
The outcome of that exclusion, of course, is harmful to the issue this conference is supposed to address. The American public remembers the Schiavo struggle as a chapter in the “culture wars.” And to the extent that we’re remembered at all, there’s a vague notion that we were “tools” of the religious right.
That also makes it harder for us to get organizations and activists to exert energy. “Why should we?” they say. All that work and no acknowledgment and little or no impact. That’s a reality of getting people with full plates to add one more thing.
So with that context, I repeat that I’m not sure that I will be back. What we bring to the table are disability activists and mainstream disability organizations. If they see a coalition dominated by groups bringing other political agendas into the discussion, they will be increasingly difficult to pull in.
Note: all of this occurred before the murder of Dr. George Tiller. Tiller was famous – or infamous – as one of the few doctors willing to openly provide late-term abortions. He was shot down while serving as an usher in church – a traditional place of sanctuary.
While most organizations opposing abortions have given what seem to be sincere statements of condemnation, there’s a glaring exception to that rule.
Yesterday, Randall Terry made the following remark regarding the murder of George Tiller:
“The point that must be emphasized over, and over, and over again: pro-life leaders and the pro-life movement are not responsible for George Tiller’s death. George Tiller was a mass-murderer and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed.”
That is Randall Terry saying that basically, Tiller got what he deserved. Not that I ever doubted it, but it once again confirms what a violence-promoting piece of crap this man is. It’s also the reason Terri Schiavo was doomed when this vermin stepped up and treated the fight for her life as his personal show to stage-manage.
Until pro-lifers can shake the taint of this violence (loudly and permanently denouncing Randall Terry would be a good start), they’ll only succeed in chasing people to the other side when it comes to issues like assisted suicide and euthanasia.
That may seem unfair to pro-lifers who consistently and sincerely abhor violence. But, as Rita Marker said at the Symposium, there is a commandment she discovered that is very important to understand:
“Life ain’t fair. Get over it.”
And it ain’t fair that some of the players last week just couldn’t seem to grasp the importance of leaving their excess baggage at the door. But even if they don’t get over it, we will – even if that means doing our work outside of a coalition that has members who don’t care enough about the issues of assisted suicide and euthanasia to exercise the necessary discipline needed to win with an effective coalition. –Stephen Drake
Yep. You nailed it. Probably wouldn’t take much to modify this for Commondreams, or a widely-read venue like that.
Stephen,
I am so sorry that you all had such a difficult time!
But indeed there are some identify as prolife and for them ideological “purity” trumps all effort to achieve any concrete, real-world goals…not to mention that they want to undermine just about every societal reform, like universal health care, that is necessary to prevent medicalized killing.
Personally, I want to ask folks like this, “What part of *coalition* building don’t you understand?” but that would only precipitate a barrage of insults about where I’m headed in the afterlife, or whether I’m a “real” prolifer.
Maybe you need to just identify and focus on those who *are* open to real coalition building and alleviating the root causes of the demand for medicalized killing. There are *some* political/religious conservatives who are open to this.
Most of all I do believe you will find the most ready and dedicated allies among those of us who identify as progressive prolifers. Disability rights is a natural in these quarters.
By the way, yes, prolifers’ horror at Tiller’s killing is by and large genuine.
Personally, I have to say, I disagreed with Tiller’s work, especially because he aborted so many children with disabilities, on the grounds they could not have lives worth living. But it was always horrifying to me, how he was targeted and attacked over the years.
But, no, he didn’t “ask” for it, not in the least. No human being “asks” to be shot down in cold blood.
Tiller had as much right to be on this earth as any of us. “Prolife” means nothing unless it includes all lives, including the lives of abortion providers.
Randall Terry has no moral credibility or claim to the word “prolifer” because of his hateful self righteous tone, hs misogyny and homophobia, his “cheerleading” of violence advocates even as he professes to disagree with them, and the fact that he abandoned his wife and kids, especially when problems with male responsibility contribute so greatly to the incidence of abortion…
And thanks for telling about the mezuzahs in your home. There are plenty of buildings in one of my ancestral countries, Poland, which still have the post holes, and I tear up every time I hear about one.
Dear Mr. Drake:
Maybe half the audience applauded because they new it to be true. My dear god, sir, Not Dead Yet just held a conference in Northern Virginia entitled “Never Again”.
The Obama Health Care Program just announced 300 billion in cuts to medicaid and medicare…The last hope for millions of the infirm and disabled. You seem to have little or no knowledge of the Nazi Euthanasia plan since the parallels are inescapable.
Josie,
Thanks. I’ll revisit that thought about publication in a different venue next week. Right now, I am trying to prepare for another road trip. Not fun.
Marysia,
I am always glad to see you comment here. Thank you for your thoughts and advice.
–Stephen
Dear theodore525,
I assure you I know far more about the history of the Nazi regime and the holocaust itself than you seem to from your comments.
Here’s a flash – budget cuts were already starting thanks to the budget hole Bush and the *Republican* majority dug us into by insufficiently funding the Iraq invasion.
Another bit of advice, if you want to accuse someone of being inaccurate, you might be better off keeping your own facts straight. NDY was a *sponsor* of the conference which was put on by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. I am beginning to regret the symbolic “sponsorship,” but that’s over and done.
To build a *coalition*, we need nonpartisan focus on the issue itself, and not shrill cries of “Nazi” against politicians you don’t like. –Stephen Drake
Steve, This is a fascinating post. I seriously considered attending this conference. I decided not to go because my schedule is hectic and it would have been expensive to attend. After reading your comments I am relieved I did not take the time to attend. Your comments are depressing but hardly a surprise. The more I read about the debate over assisted suicide the more depressed I become any resolution will ever become a reality..
Bill,
I hear you. Things can get discouraging, but there are signs of hope in the ways people have worked together in Vermont, California, Hawaii and the U.K.
There are problems of course. I just deleted a comment that pretty much ridiculed any criticism of people who celebrate the murder of George Tiller.
No posts celebrating murder or other forms of violence will be posted on this blog. If people are unhappy about that, they can complain about it on their own blogs. I’ll take it as a compliment.
It’s difficult to build coalitions when many well meaning people of other persuasions are painted, completely ad hominem, as happy about the death of Tiller.
Perhaps there’s more intolerance and bigotry in this neck of the woods than we thought.
I am concerned that people believe that the Second-International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide was a failure or a one-sided event.
Those perceptions are false, in fact clearly false.
There are problems with coalition building in the fact that certain people will insist on their agenda and others will try and impose another agenda.
As for the LaRouche thing, Stephen did not effectively explain that they are not part of the leadership, they were not speakers, they were not registered. The man showed up as a media representative asking for press credentials. I did not know what he was planning to say when he got up to ask a question, but like all conferences, you cannot control the questions from the audience.
I am dissappointed that Stephen brough in the Dr. Tiller issue. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition was the primary organizer of the event and we resent being associated with anything related to Dr. Tiller. We are a group that only focusses on euthanasia and assisted suicide and we do not view our work as being outside of the disability perspective.
Our leadership does include leaders of the disability community and they are not tokens in the group. We work in partnership with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities with an issue oriented focus. We do not go off issue.
Finally, the Second- International Symposium was an incredible success and like the First-International Symposium where a woman tried to mess up our direction by taking control of the microphone and ruining a great presentation by Catherine Frazee we have to move on, even when someone else loses focus or attempts to derail the important direction we are working toward.
Alex Schadenberg
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Those LaRouche people are kind of annoying. I made the mistake of running into them in Boston on the way to an interview. (before that, running into a young man who persuaded me to sponsor a child)
Those folks spent weeks trying to get me to join their organization, but I won’t.
So this sort of cements things. Folks should not be casual about labeling things as “NAZI”.
This is exceptionally concerning, Stephen. I want to build broad coalitions as well, but I agree with you that it is certainly the case that many of our prospective partners don’t understand the idea of coalition-building outside of their polarized political landscape. I had been invited as well but hadn’t been able to attend for scheduling reasons. If this was what occurred there, I’m glad I missed it.
VB,
The only one I painted as *anything* in regard to Tiller was Randall Terry. His work and his history speak for themselves.
Randall Terry is a self-aggrandizing jerk (to put it mildly) specializing in appealing to what is the worst in people.
Alex,
I am sorry if I wasn’t clear that the LaRouche slimebag wasn’t part of the conference. I tried to make it clear that he got himself in for free under questionable pretenses – using a “media pass” and not acting like “media” at all. That doesn’t erase the extreme discomfort I and several others had at the audience reaction to LaRouche guy and the content of his remarks.
I am sorry if you were offended by the Tiller comments, but the politics of abortion in the U.S. are very different than they are in Canada. Randall Terry – with his vile comments – is especially problematical because of the way he made his name so closely associated with Terri Schiavo.
I want to win – unfortunately, experience in this country has shown that some folks are more interested in playing to their political bases than they are in achieving specific shared goals. –Stephen
Lyn,
Glad your interactions with the LaRouche folks stopped at “annoying.”
As to the “Nazi” reference, I’m not a fan of simple truisms, but long observations confirms the truth of Godwin’s Law for me. Def of the law from Wikipedia:
Godwin’s Law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is an informal adage coined by Mike Godwin in 1990. The adage states: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”[2][3]
Godwin’s Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread reductio ad Hitlerum form.
The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases in direct proportion to the length of the discussion. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued,[4] that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact. Although in one of its early forms Godwin’s Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions,[5] the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and wiki talk pages.
Simple way to lose the part of the audience that isn’t already agreeing with you? Invoke Hitler and/or Nazis.
Ari,
There were parts of the conference that were excellent – and that includes some presentations by people who are passionately prolife.
There *have* been successful statewide coalitions that managed to have every player stay focused – Hawaii, Vermont and California come to mind.
That doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed that it can or will work on a national level. –Stephen
Stephen-I agree it is hard. These are all things I have worried about as I m attempting to form alliances with people of all political stripes. I think that the belief that opposition to euthanasia is exclusive to the political right is a pernicious and damaging belief that hurts the disability rights movement. I held a meeting about the upcoming healthcare reforms that are happening and how to ensure that disabled people wouldn’t be discriminated against through Obama for America, and the only people who showed up were three LaRouche people. Ick!
Do you think that it is okay to speak out about one’s beliefs concerning abortion and other matters as long as that isn’t done in tandom with addressing euthanasia and disability rights? This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about, as, in particular, I am passionate about the late term abortion of fetuses with disabilities. But, I don’t want to let that belief obscure efforts to achieve cooperation on these issues.
SAFEpres,
I think it’s foolish to expect people to censor themselves when it comes to other activities.
When it comes to either prochoicers or prolifers (wherever they are on that continuum), the most we can ask is that people limit their discussions to the topic/struggle at hand: assisted suicide, euthanasia, etc.
For a number of complicated reasons, this seems to be a facet of coalition-building that some people in the U.S. have a hard time getting their heads around. California, Hawaii and Vermont have done well with coalition building. Other states (in recent history), not so much.
Thanks for posting here. –Stephen Drake