Contacts:
Diane Coleman 708-420-0539 dcoleman@notdeadyet.org
Adam Prizio 518-320-7100 (office) 603-518-4910 (cell) aprizio@cdrnys.org
On February 15, 2017, Not Dead Yet and ten other national and New York state disability rights organizations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the New York Court of Appeals in support of rulings by the Supreme Court and Appellate Division, both of which dismissed a case seeking to legalize physician assisted suicide.
Joining in the Not Dead Yet brief are ADAPT, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the Center for Disability Rights, the Disability Rights Center, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, the National Council on Independent Living, the New York Association on Independent Living, Regional Center for Independent Living and United Spinal Association, collectively referred to as the “Disability Rights Amici.” New York attorney Adam Prizio handled the filing on behalf of the disability organizations.
The case is Myers v. Schneiderman (APL-2016-00129) and the disability brief supports the New York State Attorney General who is also seeking to uphold the ruling.
“Our basic position is that when some people get suicide prevention while other people get suicide assistance, and the difference is the person’s age, disability or health status, that’s unlawful discrimination,” said Prizio. “It’s a problem that certain people are being told that others not only agree with their suicide, which is bad enough, but will even help them carry it out. It’s a deadly form of discrimination and, as our brief says, it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
Each of the Disability Rights Amici brings a specific perspective to the policy debate about assisted suicide. For example, the primary mission of ADAPT is to ensure that seniors and people with disabilities are not forced into nursing facilities, but have the choice to receive consumer directed long term care services in their own home. “If the only alternative to death that those in power offer people who require assistance is segregation in nursing facilities, then it makes no sense to talk about assisted suicide as a ‘choice'”, said Bruce Darling, an ADAPT organizer based in Rochester, New York.
Many people with disabilities acquire them as a result of accidents or trauma, and their prognosis is often uncertain in the early stages. “If assisted suicide had been legal in the past, even if it were supposedly only for those with ‘terminal’ conditions, many of us would not be here today,” said Kelly Buckland, executive director of the National Council on Independent Living. “I might not be here today, and I’m grateful that assisted suicide was not legal back then, and I’m committed to keeping it that way.”
The brief also expresses concerns about the context of health care cost-cutting in which assisted suicide is being advocated. “In an aging society where elder abuse is a growing problem, elders too often face economic or other pressures to get out of the way, whether those pressures come from the health care system or, sadly, from family,” said Diane Coleman, president/CEO of Not Dead Yet.
Yes! You tell the truth but it appears the “truth” is not going to set the elderly and disabled “free” as the ACA has enabled rationing of end of life care for the elderly and the disabled in order to keep them out of expensive ICU and CCU hospital units in the last year, more or less, of their lives,
They rationalize this as fair because of the shorter life expectancies and the compromised health of the elderly and the disabled who in these days of medical miracles cannot be allowed to live as long as medically possible if the profits of the Medical Industrial Complex are to continue and be sustained. .
The Republicans will retain this rationing and the transition of Medicare from a fee for service to a Health Maintenance Organization with managed care and managed death reimbursement protocols in place.
Strangely, it appears that only people with HIV or those who are prone to get HIV because of their deviant but legal anal/oral sex lifestyles will be the only Americans to get universal health care because of the HUGE Billions-of-dollars ongoing and expensive subsidy of HIV prophylactic drug regimens that are provided over and above what is already provided under the ACA —AND which will still be in place even if Obama Care is abolished.
In my old age, I am saddened to KNOW that it is really ALL about the money and the culture of death is an equal partner with the culture of money and both political parties will protect the “money” and not the elderly and the disabled.
If I had to choose a single quote to blast to every single American to help them understand why medically assisted suicide is a really bad idea, this quote might be the one I choose (the only difference is I might replace “people with diabilities” with “people with temporary or permanent disabilities”).
Many people with disabilities acquire them as a result of accidents or trauma, and their prognosis is often uncertain in the early stages. “If assisted suicide had been legal in the past, even if it were supposedly only for those with ‘terminal’ conditions, many of us would not be here today,” said Kelly Buckland, executive director of the National Council on Independent Living. “I might not be here today, and I’m grateful that assisted suicide was not legal back then, and I’m committed to keeping it that way.”
Because PAS is pushed by the Insurance Companies and the Culture of Death crowd like the well funded Compassion and Choices, the young and middle aged citizens have been brainwashed to believe that these dangerous laws serve THEIR personal good and the public good. The idea of controlling one’s death is easy to sell to those young and middle-aged persons who are not yet threatened by age and disability and who are SURE that they would rather die than face the challenges of disability and old age.
PAS is the cheapest way to die for the patient and the private insurance companies who have invaded both Medicare and Medicaid to earn record profits in the stock markets. No wonder Compassion and Choices is so active in so many states —-and so successful….and so well funded.
Unfortunately, a good number of legislators and a good number of the public don’t really care that the disabled and the elderly are deliberately targeted for savings in so called end-of-life care by overt and covert means of keeping them out of expensive ICU and CCU units in public hospitals when they fight to survive and live as long as is medically possible.
They don’t care if the elderly and the disabled are UNILATERALLY denied medical care, as necessary, that shortens their lives and sends them to eternity sooner than medically necessary.
The rationale is that this population of the elderly and the disabled are are going to die sooner, anyway, because of their compromised health due to disability and/or age so why not “sooner” in the interests of fiscal expediency and management of health resources in our for-profit Medical Industrial Complex.
Unfortunately, it’s always about the money, and PAS along with involuntary passive euthanasia of Medicare/Medicaid patients with unilateral overt and covert DNR code status in US public Hospitals helps to preserve the profits of the powerful Medical Industrial Complex as PAS and Hospice/Palliative Care are pushed to the masses under the Affordable Care Act by the Press and Media and the federal and state governments. .
Medicare/Medicaid have been “quietly” changed in the last eight to ten years from “fee for service” to huge HMO’s whose reimbursement protocols are based on managed care and managed death principles to save money for Medicare/Medicaid and ensure and sustain the profits for the private insurers who have invaded public funds like Medicare/Medicaid to earn record profits.
This is ugly truth verified again to me, recently, by the obvious conspiracy in the Missouri Courts to hide Missouri’s Life Support Law from the public that was heard by the Supreme Court (the Nancy Cruzan Case, that opened the door to the right to die) but sustained the right of patients to live in a less clear manner)
The Missouri Court went out of its way in the criminal trial of an attorney for the murder of her Father and his long-time common-law wife with a forged Power of Attorney for Health (the Susan VanNote Murder Trial in Lebanon Missouri in Feb 2017) to NOT make case law that would establish that a proven forged Power of Attorney for Health Care, an advanced directive, or a Living will or a unilateral overt/covert DNR could be “murder” and the immediate cause of death of a patient in a hospital in Missouri. . .
Also, until the “choice” of receiving home & community based personal assistance supports and services (PASS) are a viable option, even discussion of assisted suicide is premature. What kind of choice is it for a person to have to live with resentful, abusive family members or in an institutional setting to receive PASS? What kind of choice is it to have limitations due to a medical condition, yet have unmet transportation, housing, personal assistance, professional service, necessary medication, or durable medical equipment needs?