…y rights organizations and advocates, sent a letter to Philips Respironics today requesting immediate action to repair, replace, and offer guidance to medical professionals on recalled devices relied upon by many users for life-sustaining care. On June 14, 2021, Philips Respironics issued a recall of thirteen models of ventilators, CPAP, and BiPAP machines. The recall advises that users immediately discontinue use of the affected machines due to t…
…e rationale for granting such immunity in today’s edition of The Guardian: Today I and hundreds of other disabled and terminally ill people want you to know, we do not want assisted dying to be legalised for “people like us”. I will speak in the House of Lords against proposed amendments to the coroners and criminal justice bill that seek to set this country on the road to legalising assisted dying and, ultimately, euthanasia for people with termi…
…eople with dementia are being fed against their will. Bassett’s article in Today’s Geriatric Medicine is very good. He includes the voices of reps from EOLWA, Alzheimer’s Association – and me, representing NDY. As we’ve seen over the past few decades, narrow initiatives like this act as door-openers, in which a narrowly-defined “refusal” of life-sustaining treatment expands over time both in terms of the groups who may exercise this “right” and th…
…to uphold the prosecution of members of Final Exit Network. Many people struggle every day to get the basic essentials to live and participate in the community. Attitudes based on prejudice are thrown in people’s way, so people sometimes feel despair over the never ending struggle for access and acceptance. When young, healthy, nondisabled people say they want to commit suicide, society says their suicide would be a tragedy and tries to prevent i…
…doctor says no, call the main organization that supports assisted suicide—today it’s called Compassion & Choices but it used to be known as the Hemlock Society—and it will refer you to assisted-suicide-friendly doctors. They have been involved in between 75% and 90% of Oregon’s reported assisted suicides, then stopped releasing this data. Shopping for another doctor who says yes, will get around the law’s weak safeguards. Take the case of Oregon…
