Boston, MA: Boston Mayor Proclaimed July 26, 2012 ‘John B. Kelly Day’

July 30, 2012activism, advocacy, Americans with Disabilities Act, disability rights, john kelly, Our News & Commentary Blog, Second ThoughtsStephen Drake

…ry Celebration of the signing of the ADA (Americans with DisAbilities Act) today– and immediately got to work. He had a table to organize (Second-Thoughts.org); people waiting for his answers on a number of other projects; and, he was also getting ready to participate in Boston Mayor Menino’s ribbon-cutting for the brand new Boston City Hall Plaza Access Route- an idea that John envisioned, provided Design Expertise for, and generated conducive co…

Bioethicist Endorses Mass. Assisted Suicide Bill in a Sloppy and Intellectually Lazy Essay

November 2, 2012Art Caplan, assisted suicide, ben mattlin, bioethics, Compassion & Choices, disability rights advocates, final exit network, Massachusetts, Oregon, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality checkStephen Drake

…medical costs, the biggest fear is that the vulnerable will get the bum’s rush to the hereafter. (Emphasis added.) A little later he adds this “straw man” version of concerns of opponents of assisted suicide: The critics are worrying about a shift to mass suicide inspired by heartless doctors and families pressuring dying patients to end it. As luck would have it, there are several disability-centric related critiques of assisted suicide that hav…

Bill Peace, Stephen Kuusisto and a Little from Me on the Growing Cheerleading Squad for Tomas Young’s Suicide

March 21, 2013bigotry, bill peace, media, media bias, Our News & Commentary Blog, stephen Kuusisto, suicide, Tomas Young, VSEDStephen Drake

…st Letter” from Young that has been forwarded countless places on the web. Today, he was interviewed on “Democracy Now.” Both Bill Peace and Stephen Kuusisto have written followups, and they’ll give you a little more info and some excellent thoughts and analysis on this death train. First from Bill Peace writes on the misleading reporting on Thomas Young: The Huffington Post published a story yesterday entitled “Thomas Young, Dying Iraq Veteran Pe…

DREDF’s Marilyn Golden Provides High Powered Public Comments to IOM Transforming End-of-Life Care Committee

May 29, 2013discrimination, DNR, Do-Not-Resuscitate, dredf, Institute of Medicine, Marilyn Golden, medical discrimination, Our News & Commentary Blog, Terrie Lincolncoercion, Dredf, End-of-life, Marilyn Golden, medical discriminationDiane Coleman

…urse. They press this viewpoint on us, our families and sometimes even overrule us when we disagree. Let me tell you a true story about a young disabled woman who worked for the Center for Disability Rights in upstate New York. At the age of 19, she’d had a car accident . . . . While lying in a hospital bed on a ventilator . . . doctors would ask her mother if she was ready to “pull the plug”. “Why would I want to do that?” she would ask. The doct…

NPR’s Morning Edition Covers the Organ Procurement Debate

June 24, 2013bioethics, donation after cardiac death, national catholic partnership on disability, OPTN, Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, organ transplants, Our News & Commentary Blog, Rob Stein, Stephen MikochikDiane Coleman

…rsity’s law school, worries about certain situations, such as when parents rush to the hospital and discover a child has suffered severe brain injuries in a car accident. “You’re going to be extremely upset. And if a physician comes in and says, ‘Look, the prognosis doesn’t look very good.’ And then a procurement officer comes in and says, ‘Well, look, let’s make something meaningful out of this.’ You might decide right then to agree to take the p…