RELEASE: Disability Rights Group Challenges Language for Assisted Suicide Ballot Measure as “Misleading, Inaccurate, and Euphemistic”

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Disability Rights Group Challenges Language for Assisted Suicide Ballot Measure as “Misleading, Inaccurate, and Euphemistic”

John Kelly, Director of Second Thoughts, 
disability activists opposed to legalizing assisted suicide

Boston, Massachusetts (PRWEB) May 18, 2012 
On Thursday, May 17, 2012, over 60 Massachusetts voters including members of the disability rights group Second Thoughts filed a challenge before the Supreme Judicial Court (Case No. SJ 2012 0216) regarding the proposed ballot language for the measure that, if approved, would legalize assisted suicide in the state.
“The ballot language is clearly misleading,” said Second Thoughts director John Kelly of Boston. “We want the voters of Massachusetts to know exactly what they are voting on this November,” he said.
The petition asks the Supreme Judicial Court to remand the language to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and Secretary of State William Galvin with the requirement that they amend the language for clarity and accuracy.
“The ballot language repeats the problems of the bill itself,” said Second Thoughts member Paul Spooner of Taunton. “The title is euphemistic, with the word ‘medication’ twisted beyond recognition. People will be led to believe that the measure is about palliative care, when it is about taking a lethal overdose — in other words, poison. Why not just call the act by its common and legal name, ‘physician-assisted suicide?'”
“The way ‘terminally-ill’ is used in the description is clearly misleading,” said Kelly, “people will be encouraged to assume that being ‘terminally ill’ is a biological fact, rather than a human guess.”
“People with disabilities are very familiar with so-called terminal diagnoses,” said Second Thoughts member John Norton of Florence. “Everyone knows someone who has outlived their terminal diagnosis — I was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease as a teenager; I’m alive and well fifty years later. The ballot language misleads by implying that a ‘terminally-ill’ diagnosis actually leads to death within six months. Instead, it should say ‘diagnosed as terminal’ or something similar in terms of accuracy.”
“And what about choice,” asked Spooner. “There are no safeguards to protect patients from having the poison given to them by an heir or abusive caretaker. No witnesses are required under the law, so if someone else were to administer the drugs, who would know?”
The language submitted by the Attorney General Martha Coakley and Secretary of State is:
Title: Prescribing Medication to End Life [11-12] – Petition G
A YES VOTE would enact the proposed law allowing a physician licensed in Massachusetts to prescribe medication, at the request of a terminally-ill patient meeting certain conditions, to end that person’s life. (Massachusetts Register, page 3.)
Second Thoughts has taken a leading role in opposing the ballot measure, and has been featured in the Boston Sunday Globe Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and on local TV and radio.
For full features of release, go to: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/5/prweb9517524.htm
 

1 thought on “RELEASE: Disability Rights Group Challenges Language for Assisted Suicide Ballot Measure as “Misleading, Inaccurate, and Euphemistic””

  1. As long as the patient dies, everyone feels like they are off the hook– what a huge opportunity for abuse.

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RELEASE: Disability Rights Group Announces Opposition to Massachusetts Assisted Suicide Initiative

assisted suicide, disability activists, john kelly, karen schneiderman, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Medical Society, Our News & Commentary Blog, paul spooner, Second Thoughts, steve higgins
Boston, MA (PRWEB) December 09, 2011 

On Thursday, December 8 at 12:30 p.m. at the Massachusetts State House, disability rights advocates, speaking as part of a new group they are calling Second Thoughts, publicly announced their opposition to a proposed assisted suicide 2012 ballot initiative in Massachusetts. Led by Boston disability activist John Kelly, with members from a number of the state’s centers for independent living run by people with disabilities, the group plans to add its voice to the growing and diverse opposition to the initiative.

Kelly spoke at a press conference attended by about 25 advocates. Karen Schneiderman, a woman with a disability who testified against an assisted suicide bill in 2010, spoke as a member of Second Thoughts as well. There were also remarks from other individuals who oppose legalization of assisted suicide, including former State Representative Mark Carron.

“Some people may ask why disabled people are speaking out about problems with a proposal that’s supposed to be about terminal illness,” said Kelly, “but when you look at the reasons Oregon reports for giving lethal prescriptions, it’s mainly about the social and emotional issues of becoming disabled, like depending on others and feeling like a burden.”

The top five reasons Oregon doctors report patients requesting suicide all relate to the perceived quality of life — not the conditions of actual dying — of the patient. In order, the reasons listed are the “loss of autonomy” (89.9%), “less able to engage in activities” (87.4%), “loss of dignity” (83.8%), “loss of control of bodily functions” (58.7%) and “feelings of being a burden” (38.3%) (Death With Dignity Act Annual Reports).

“There are so many problems with this initiative, from everyday inaccuracies in diagnosis and prognosis, to a lack of meaningful safeguards against abuse and pressure from self interested family,” said Paul Spooner, executive director of Metro West Center for Independent Living. “The reality is that once the lethal dose is in the house, an heir to the person’s estate could administer it without anyone’s knowledge.”

The Massachusetts disability advocates have reached out for support from national disability groups that have long opposed assisted suicide, especially Not Dead Yet and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

Last weekend, on December 3, the Massachusetts Medical Society, which represents 23,000 of the state’s
physicians, voted to sustain its long standing opposition to doctor assisted suicide. According to the Society’s press release, Lynda Young, M.D., president of the Society, said that “Physicians of our Society have clearly declared that physician-assisted suicide is inconsistent with the physician’s role as healer and health care provider. At the same time we recognize the importance of patient dignity and the critical role that physicians have in end-of-life care.”
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