Joseph Fins, Expert on Consciousness, Calls for Temperance re: Organ Solicitation and Severe Brain Injury

June 27, 2012brain injury, coma, organ donation, Our News & Commentary Blog, vegetative statebrain injury, coma, minimally conscious state, vegetative stateStephen Drake

…ewed as rightly theirs—organs that would have a salutary effect on another human being. I use the word “hover” deliberately, if a bit provocatively, because that is how families of many brain injury patients viewed it. I know this from interviews with more than 40 families, each with a member who had a disorder of consciousness, who came to Weill Cornell Medical College for enrollment in neuroimaging and EEG studies designed to elucidate mechanism…

Why I Support the CRPD

November 30, 2012abuse, access to health care, civil rights, CRPD - Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, death by starvation and dehydration, death through denial, diane coleman, futility, homicide, human rights, medical discrimination, national disability rights network, NDRN, Our News & Commentary Blog, Surrogate Decisions & Guardianship, treatment withdrawal, treatment withholding, united nationsDiane Coleman

…war politics. Article 10 simply states: States Parties reaffirm that every human being has the inherent right to life and shall take all necessary measures to ensure its effective enjoyment by persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others. Not Dead Yet’s concerns about futility policies, surrogate decision-making and assisted suicide all pertain to the notion that persons with disabilities have the same inherent right to live as everyone…

Denounce Lethal Anti-Disability Healthcare Policy Advocated by Peter Singer (Change.org)

April 28, 2015bigotry, bioethics, Our News & Commentary Blog, Peter Singer, petitionbigotry, bioethics, disability discrimination, healthcare policiesStephen Drake

…media promotion of a new book, The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically. Unlike most interviewers, Klein decided to explore some of Singer’s earlier writings and to discuss them. On Friday, April 23, the National Council on Disability issued a press statement on Singer’s comments during the show, which read in part: Singer told Klein that health care rationing is already happening, and surmised tha…

Guest Blog: “On Trees and Travel and the Value of Life” by Audrey Cole

May 13, 2013assisted suicide, Audrey Cole, Canada, guest blog, suicideStephen Drake

…a decision to lop off a significant upper portion of a magnificent white spruce, the age of which is estimated by the person on whose coastal property it sits, to be about 85. (http://fragileandwild.com/2013/04/11/slow-death-and-the-felling-of-trees/#more-293) Although the tree might have fallen at any time, that surgical “lopping” will inevitably cause its death albeit much more slowly than would a “fell-swoop”. It wasn’t the similarity in our ag…

Press Release: Not Dead Yet Urges Secretary Sebelius and Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to Prohibit Organ Procurers from Pressuring Sick or Injured to Give Up on Living

June 20, 2013brain injury, donation after cardiac death, HHS, Institute of Medicine, life-sustaining treatment, OPTN, organ donation, Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, Our News & Commentary Blog, Press Releases, Second Thoughts, United Network on Organ SharingDiane Coleman

…ed by Not Dead Yet on June 19, “By deferring to ‘hospital policy’ on such crucial issues, this proposal is both anti-scientific and anti-patient-rights. This type of local control is no better than ‘states rights’ when federal civil rights are needed to protect a devalued or disenfranchised group. OPTN/UNOS should be providing leadership in protecting individual rights, not deferring to hospital autonomy and announcing that ‘anything goes.’” The c…