Every year on June 15th, the USC Center for Elder Justice leads people and organizations across the globe in spreading awareness about elder abuse. The World Health Organization defines elder abuse as “a single, or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person.”[1] Not Dead Yet recognizes the insidious role elder abuse can play in coercing older people to request assisted suicide.
Regardless of the purported “safeguards” in assisted suicide laws, we know that older adults are susceptible to forms of abuse that could lead to an accelerated and unwanted death in a state or country where assisted suicide is legal. Financial exploitation, particularly the phenomenon that Australian elder abuse researchers refer to as “inheritance impatience,”[2] is a troubling example of this. Heirs and caregivers who stand to profit off the death of an older person may advocate for choices that accelerate death and make payday come faster. There is evidence of people being coerced into signing revisions to their will made by a greedy beneficiary.[3]
What is to stop someone from being pressured or threatened to literally sign away their life by “consenting” to assisted suicide? Witnesses to the signature may be required, but they need not know anything about the person, their family or circumstances.
Many leaders in the fight to end elder abuse contend that the responsibility is on younger and/or healthier people to intervene when they suspect an older person is suffering mistreatment.[4] But what happens when people in a position to step in do not have the best interests of the older person in mind? Obviously, not every perpetrator of elder abuse is doing so out of hatred, malice or greed. Many people may inadvertently make an elderly person feel like a burden, for example, when they talk about the high cost of care for that person, or the struggles that come with moving them into a family member’s home, as is more often the case when structural supports for home and community-based services are absent in communities.[5] Legalizing assisted suicide opens up another avenue for elders to be abused and killed.
Finally, older adults may feel pressured to request assisted suicide because, as the Oregon assisted suicide reports show, they feel they are losing their dignity, independence, or ability to participate in activities they enjoy. These feelings reflect society’s ableism, biases against disability they have absorbed over a lifetime and may now turn against themselves. Changing such attitudes is a critical part of the Disability Rights Movement.
Not Dead Yet continues to oppose assisted suicide legislation to keep older, disabled, and chronically ill people safe from the ultimate harm. For more information about World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, visit this website.
