This just dropped into my mailbox and I haven’t had a chance to listen to the whole thing yet, let alone my own part of the interview.
Radio Netherlands has an extended story on developments regarding assisted suicide, with emphasis on the U.K., the Netherlands and the USA. I was contacted by Hermione Gee to represent NDY and our viewpoint for this segment.
Here’s the URL for the text description of the radio show:
Below is some context and a quote from my interview, which begins about 7 minutes into the show:
Stephen Drake of the disability rights group Not Dead Yet argues that any law that permits assisted dying for one group of people – for example the old, ill and disabled – but not for everyone, is implicitly discriminating against that group and undermining their value as human beings. As he sees it,
“euthanasia and assisted suicide gives society a great way to divest itself of people that they see as a burden while patting themselves on the back as being compassionate and noble”.
There is a button that links you to the audio of the show in the URL linked above. (Looks like it uses Windows mediaplayer, at least on my system)
But you can also reach it directly by clicking here.
I’ll do my best to get a transcript of my part of the interview up by the end of today. If I don’t manage that, it will be up by sometime on Monday. –Stephen Drake
This is not directly related to your article (but it has similar themes). My English class is reading Of Mice and Men and I just finished it far ahead of time. I was appalled by the blatant misrepresentation of people with disabilities in the book. I also read reviews afterwords to discover how a person could possibly think that the book was a classic and I was equally shocked by the level of ignorance that is available even now. One person said that the saddest part of the book is that not only did George have to kill his friend but in the process he destroyed his own dream, I personally believe that the saddest part of the book was split up into two parts: 1) Lennie trusted George wholeheartedly and George repaid that trust by shooting him in the back of the head 2) and nobody ever tried to teach Lennie how to control his immense strength because they assumed that he was too stupid to learn anything which had a potential to cause trouble and then Lennie is blamed for his lack of control. Another person wrote, “He also had amazing perception of how it could be to live with a mentally retarded and incredibly strong family member.” This argument lacks credence (partly because George was not related to Lennie in any way shape or form), my younger sister has a disability that would be categorized in the bracket of “mental retardation” and I have never felt the urge to put a bullet through the back of her head and if I saw someone else who wished to “put her out of her misery” I would do everything in my power to crush him or her like a bug. I think that the fact that pieces of literature like this are still on the curriculum and the release of controversial movies like Tropic Thunder are the main cause of the problems that are facing the movement for disability rights.
Stephen, I have to say that I was somewhat taken aback by your answers to the interviewer’s questions. Your response could be plainly interpreted to mean that your *only* opposition to assisted suicide is that it is represents a double standard that discriminates against the disabled.
IN fact, the interviewer more or less focused a question on whether you would still be opposed to these measures if they were made available to *all* citizens and not restricted to “terminally ill” patients or patients suffering from a serious affliction. I thought your answer was evasive to the interviewer’s question.
I was hoping for a response that made it clear that assisted suicide is not ethical under *any* circumstances, even ones that do not discriminate against the disabled.
What is your position on this? Are you *not* opposed to assisted suicide that is available to anyone, even a healthy teenager, for example, who has just decided that he cannot cope with breaking up with his girlfriend?
Stephen, congratulations on getting heard!
Anonymous,
I’ve long thought that school editions of “Of Mice and Men” should carry a supplement describing the times that the book was written in – the heyday of the eugenics era in this country. During the time that Steinbeck was writing, the eugenics movement had succeeded in passing sterilization laws in over 25 states. Eventually, over 70,000 Americans were sterilized against their will.
Extermination of people with disabilities was also a topic of discussion at the time, but hadn’t made it to the policy level in terms of advocacy.
Roger,
I am sorry you were disappointed. But a main tactic of the pro-assisted movement is to distinguish between suicides for “right reasons” and “wrong reasons.” It’s a real problem when the state starts deciding that some suicides are “justified” while the majority aren’t.
This is the same position we’ve always held. Check out this section of our amicus brief to the Supreme Court in Vacco v. Quill:
http://notdeadyet.org/argue3.html
It’s titled “If This Court Finds That Either A Constitutional Or Statutory Right To Assisted Suicide Exists, Then This Right Should Be Afforded To Everyone Without Discriminating Against People Because Of Health Or Disability Status” –Stephen