…esterday’s (August 13) Diane Rehm Show has both audio and a transcript available online now. If you missed the discussion, please check it out. Among topics discussed: conflation of high morphine doses in hospice with the barbiturates used in assisted suicide; the ways in which the term “end of life” has expanded beyond usefulness – serving to obfuscate rather than clarify conversation; and if we’re really kinder to animals than to humans when it…
…r, but I won’t be talking – much – about NDY stuff, except how my neurological issues affect my work – in mostly positive ways. To my fellow disability activists – I solemnly swear not to get all inspiration and avoid the use of the word “overcoming” at all costs. In addition to the above, Diane and I were both attending to family issues – one of those inevitable serious health crises. Fortunately, while things were serious, things seem to be goin…
…ed a stage IV skin breakdown – with a long treatment process that was physically and emotionally grueling by his own accounts. While Bill was hospitalized – and at one of his lowest points healthwise – he was subjected to a late night visit by a hospitalist. Laying out a grim set of possible outcomes for Bill’s health crisis, the doctor seemed to be urging Bill to just discontinue antibiotics and let himself be given palliative care to be pain-fre…
…ed suicide! Assisted suicide is bad medicine, a prescription for abuse! So-called safeguards are hollow. Too dangerous: Many disability organizations and the American Medical Association oppose legalization If this bill passes, some people’s lives will be ended without their consent, through mistakes and abuse. No safeguards have ever been enacted or proposed that can prevent this outcome, which can never be undone. • Deadly mix: Assisted suicide…
…spinal cord injury in 1984. The level of my injury was at the fourth cervical level, resulting in near total paralysis below my shoulders. My breathing ability survived the injury, and after diaphragmatic strengthening, I have breathed without assistance for the last 30 years. I drive a powered wheelchair with a sip/puff tube, live in the community with assistants I hire and manage myself, and work part-time as a disability rights advocate. I am…
