(Originally Posted on Justice For All Blog on 8/14/09 – and sent to media outlets)
August 14, 2009
Disability Community Denounces Rationing Argument in NYT
From Not Dead Yet (8/14/09):
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact:
Not Dead Yet and Coalition Denounce
New York Times Magazine Article
Coalition Sends Letter to NYT Magazine Asking for Dialogue on Disability Issues
WASHINGTON, DC – August 14, 2009 – Not Dead Yet, along with more than 40 other disability organizations, including the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), has signed on to a letter to New York Times Magazine Editor Gerald Marzorati denouncing a July 15 article by ethicist Peter Singer. Singer’s article argued for rationing health care by denying treatments to people with disabilities based on the assumption that our lives have less value than the lives of nondisabled people.
“For The New York Times Magazine to publish an article calling for health care rationing that would discriminate against people with disabilities one week before the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act shows how out of touch the leadership at The New York Times Magazine is,” said Not Dead Yet President Diane Coleman. “Peter Singer is a sloppy ethicist who should not be given a forum by a publication as credible as The New York Times. His piece, published at a key time in the health care debate, gives fodder to critics whose goal is to kill any reform by raising the specter of government supported euthanasia.”
The letter, written by Stephen Drake, Research Analyst for Not Dead Yet, states:
“…This is Peter Singer’s most direct assault on the value of the lives of people with physical disabilities past the age of infancy that we have read. His policy proposals allowing for the killing of newborns with disabilities and people with significant cognitive disabilities are already well known.
While this is a bolder assault than we have seen from Professor Singer in the past, it’s hardly surprising. What’s surprising and deeply disturbing is that the NY Times editorial staff have sought him out as a writer on more than one occasion…”
The coalition has requested the following of The New York Times Magazine:
1. The NY Times staff needs to define and clarify its understanding of disability as a basic human rights issue.
2. If the current stance of the NY Times is that the lives of people with disabilities are, in fact, a drain on health care sources, it should be stated on record.
3. Discuss training in the basics of covering disability in news stories – beyond the “human interest” and “medical” angles.
4. Cover the difference between “analysis” and “appealing to bigotry” in public policy discussions.
To read the letter in its entirety, visit http://notdeadyetnewscommentary.blogspot.com. For more information about AAPD’s views on the Peter Singer piece in The New York Times, please visit www.aapd.com.
Not Dead Yet, 497 State St.,
Rochester, NY 14608
Phone: 585-697-1640; Fax: 585-697-1641; Email: sndrake@aol.com
I’m astonished. How can you simultaneously be fighting euthanasia (i.e. murder) while also working for Obama’s health care “reform”? Euthanasia, and the wholesale neglect and abuse of anyone with chronic health issues, is intrinsically built into that system. A private sector, multi-payer system with a system of follow-the-patient vouchers is the only way to ensure that the disabled (or genetically unpopular, i.e. fat people) will not wind up dying prematurely. Why doesn’t the disability community understand that pressures now to sign “advanced directives” or to forego life-extending procedures like trach insertion, etc. are NOTHING compared to what would come from Obama care. Not only would every patient with a chronic condition or disability, or who is otherwise stigmatized be continually pressured to commit suicide as quickly as possible, that “willingness” to die quickly would be instrinsically the default assumption in the system. WHY AREN’T PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES FIGHTING AGAINST OBAMA CARE? THIS IS BIZARRE!
Put #3 in capital letters.
Request lots more representation of
disability rights/human rights
activists in articles to assure
“balance” and “actual facts”, as
well as “we know our lives”.
(Reminds me of the 1960s when
Blacks made the point that
African-Americans needed news-
paper reporters who “look like
them”, and the NYTimes sent
Earl Caldwell to Harlem in the
late 1960s, a first, to do a
story. Similarly, for women
in newsrooms in media…We
are still making the case about
people with disabilities.
Note:it’s not a guarantee of an
antidote to “PeterSingerism”,
but it would help. I’d like
editors who are pwd,too. The
power is with editorial
decisions.
kell,
most of us probably support much stronger reform than is currently in the legislative pipe.
Personally, I know many people with significant disabilities living in countries with government-controlled health care. They’re alternately amused and pissed about what is being said about their systems. It’s not that they don’t face discrimination – but their problems don’t tend to be anything worse than in the U.S. – and then they have the big bonus of having everyone get healthcare.
The systems that exist in other countries demonstrate that your nightmare scenario is not inevitable at all – it’s not even remotely likely, in terms of worsening those things that already exist in terms of shutting people out of health care.
What’s your take on Ezekiel Emanuel??
Ezekiel Emanuel has been a consistent opponent of assisted suicide and euthanasia. I am trying to catch up with some other stuff right now, but DREDF wrote an analysis that highlights that part of his history. They also point out that much of what has been held up for condemnation have been taken out of their original context.
In short, he’s more disability-friendly than the average “mainstream” bioethicist (faint praise). He’s written a lot of pieces over the years – and some of it can be subject to debate and criticism. But he seems a poor target for the near-demonization that some have treated him with.