Lisa Blumberg is an attorney and disability activist in Connecticut. Her op-ed, Why the disability community opposes doctor assisted suicide, appeared today in the New Haven Register. Here are some excerpts.
People who have always been able to get the healthcare they want may assume assisted suicide is a choice issue, but persons who have struggled to get care that is free from bias see it as bad public policy. For us, the issue centers around how much and what kind of power a doctor should be given. Disability rights activists who see themselves as progressives are mobilizing.
Doctors are essential components of these laws and authorizing them to prescribe fatal doses of medication is counter to a society that values the health and well-being of all. If we enact assisted suicide laws, we normalize death as part of the doctor’s black bag. We expand the role of a doctor from provider of healthcare, be it curative, rehabilitative or palliative, to agent of death.
Blumberg highlighted the experience of NDY Board member Bill Peace:
In a searing piece for Hastings Center Reports, anthropology professor William J. Peace, who has paralysis, describes how a hospitalist, who knew nothing about him, gave him the choice to forgo antibiotics rather than endure the rigors, uncertainties, and expenses of recovery from a major pressure wound. Peace’s reaction was fear and demoralization based on the merits of his survival being questioned.
To read the whole article, go here.
Just excellent expanding on some glossed over facets. Well done.