Not Dead Yet Applauds Court Ruling In CA Euthanasia Case

[Author’s note: Readers may wonder why it’s taken a month for me to post my response to the federal district court ruling in the Shavelson case. I was hoping to be able to post it after it appeared as an op-ed in one of the California newspaper outlets I pitch it to, but, alas, NDY’s message was not picked up. So I am finally posting it on the one month anniversary of the decision. It’s also an ADA case, so it’s another positive note for next Tuesday’s ADA Anniversary. – Diane Coleman]

Not Dead Yet Applauds Court Ruling In CA Euthanasia Case

Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group, applauds the federal District Court of Northern California for its June 22^nd ruling against expanding California’s doctor assisted suicide law to allow euthanasia. This auspicious day also marked the 23^rdanniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Olmstead, which established our right to be free from institutions. Unfortunately, the fights against euthanasia and institutionalization are not over.

As a person who depends on full time breathing support, I’ve been deeply concerned about the Shavelson v. Bonta case. Euthanasia involves lethal drugs administered by medical providers, rather than being self-administered, and poses a direct threat to people with disabilities. It would deny disabled people the equal protection of laws against homicide.

I started Not Dead Yet 26 years ago during Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s days of assisting the suicides of disabled people who were clearly not terminally ill. Some people viewed assisted suicide as a sort of “reasonable accommodation” to enable people who have serious physical impairments to have the same access to suicide as physically able people. 

That twisted “reasonable accommodation” theory doesn’t really hold up on closer examination. For one thing, none of the assisted suicide laws require that the individual cannot commit suicide without assistance, and proponents offer “how to” guides. Furthermore, healthy and able-bodied suicidal people are very likely to survive a suicide attempt rather than die, but assisted suicide bills have never included eligibility for them. So that reasonable accommodation theory doesn’t hold up.

Four doctors and two persons with disabilities brought the Shavelson case to open the door to active euthanasia. In theory, this would provide euthanasia to persons who might lose the ability to swallow pills or to deliver assisted suicide drugs through a feeding tube or IV, perhaps by pressing a button. They’re calling euthanasia a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Not Dead Yet has always taken the position that assisted suicide laws themselves violate the ADA by setting up a double standard for how society responds to a person who says they want to commit suicide – some people get suicide prevention and others get suicide assistance, and the difference is the person’s health and disability status. And the data shows that virtually all people who request assisted suicide are distressed about disabilities, even if some don’t think of their impairments that way.

We’re especially concerned about assisted suicide becoming an accepted medical treatment. Anyone who has struggled to get necessary healthcare knows that your right to receive care depends on your pocketbook, your insurance, race, age, disability, etc.

Sadly, people with severe disabilities, especially those who are multiply marginalized, are among the least valued in the healthcare system, both because our higher needs make us less profitable in a managed care environment and because of crushing societal biases that have been absorbed by doctors and staff. As a Harvard researcher found, “In our survey of 714 practicing US physicians nationwide, 82.4 percent reported that people with significant disability have worse quality of life than nondisabled people.”

But what really threatens our quality of life is how hard it is to get the supports we need to live. Right now, the direct care workers who help us get out of bed and ready for our day are fleeing to jobs that pay higher wages than public or private insurance is willing to pay for our care. One friend with quadriplegia who’s lived in her own apartment for over ten years recently said she’s thinking of assisted suicide because she’d rather die than be forced back into a nursing home.

Instead of addressing these horrible realities so our basic needs are met, there are growing efforts to expand assisted suicide laws and dismantle their minimal patient protections.

The Shavelson plaintiffs’ proposal to allow a medical provider to perform the final act of administering lethal drugs would pose a dramatically greater threat. It would rob patients of the power to change their minds at that last crucial moment and cross the final line that separates assisted suicide from full on homicide.

We are grateful that the federal district court refused the Shavelson request to allow euthanasia and dismissed the case. But the very real pressures on disabled people to get out of the way, the ableism that permeates society, and most likely this court case, are not over.