…e medicine, and so they don’t use the medicine simply to end their life willy nilly. People who live longer than six months is proof that in fact they live as long as they possibly can-we all want to live as long as we can. Family members encouraging one to have alternative medicine, to live longer so no, the data actually proves that we encourage people to live as long as possible, and they do. Emma Wilson: Let me bring in John Kelly from Boston….
…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 mechanisms of recovery. While they were here, we conduc…
…tal disabilities for over ten years.) At the moment, I was living comfortably, happily and monkishly in the masters program in Special Ed at Syracuse University. I was great with students, clients, and in a structured setting. Anywhere else I was at a total loss. Where am I going with that? Let me put it this way. The teacher who supervised my student teaching had this to say after seeing the movie: “No wonder you liked it. The doctor in it is you…
…e or job loss. Where assisted suicide is legal, I would be treated completely differently due to my condition. This is just one example of how slippery the definition of terminal really is. Under assisted suicide policies, many people with disabilities would qualify for assisted suicide and be denied the suicide prevention and other supports that nondisabled people could take for granted if they expressed a desire to die. Assisted suicide laws are…
…as being acceptable for people with disabilities, and they defined it fairly openly so someone who’s a person with disabilities like John Kelly – who is on the call – if he were considered competent he could simply be euthanized, if it were approved by a doctor. The concept with this I have an issue with is about choice, because it’s not always about choice. It’s often about people in a difficult time of their life and their being – they feel bec…
