NDY Board Chair Anne Sommers delivers powerful testimony (video)

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The disability community turned out in force to oppose an assisted suicide bill currently pending in the District of Columbia, and our help is still needed. The DC Council’s Health and Human Services Committee held a hearing on the bill (B21-38) on July 10th, and NDY’s Board Chair, Anne Sommers, delivered powerful testimony.

Her full written testimony on behalf of NDY is also available here.

The hearing is archived, but the total time of the online video is 15 hours, so Lindsay Baran of the National Council on Independent Living provided the following time markers for the awesome disability advocates who testified.

Mollie Greenberg (NCIL): 1:43:40

Samantha Crane (ASAN & also an NDY Board Officer): 3:17:25

Lindsay Baran (NCIL): 3:21:40

Georges Aguehounde (DCCIL): 4:27:25

Anne Sommers (NDY): 6:00:50

Shira Wakschlag (The Arc): 6:39:20

Maureen Hollowell (DREDF): 7:07:35

If you would like to submit written testimony or a letter opposing B21-38 “Death with Dignity Act” to the Health and Human Services Committee, the deadline is this Friday, July 24th. Written testimony can be of any length. You should address your testimony or letter to:

Committee on Health and Human Services
Attn: Malcolm Cameron
John A. Wilson Building
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 115
Washington, DC 20004

To deliver it, you can either email it to the committee staffer mcameron@dccouncil.us or mail it to the address above.

It is also possible that the Judiciary Committee may submit a comment on the bill to the HHS Committee sometime in the near future.  Anyone whose testimony focuses more on the “legal” aspects of the bill could also submit written comment to the Judiciary Committee.  Written testimony to the DC Council Judiciary Committee should be addressed to:  Committee on the Judiciary, Council Member Kenyan McDuffie, Chairman, and it can be emailed to the Judiciary Committee’s Legislative Counsel, Shawn Hilgendorf at shilgendorf@dccouncil.us.

Amy Hasbrouck: The ADA is Not Dead Yet and So Are We

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The ADA is not dead yet, and so are we.

In 1991 when I was learning the details of the Americans with Disabilities Act, in order to educate others with disabilities, business owners, governments, etc., the dates for entry into compliance of many of the law’s provisions seemed very far away.  I had seen and profited from many changes wrought by earlier disability rights laws, but I had also battled for compliance and implementation.  All that to say, I didn’t know what the future under ADA would look like.
Resistance started early; bus and subway drivers didn’t want to have to announce stops.  A mechanized solution was only moderately successful, and the struggle continued until the technology caught up to the problem.  Announcements are better, if not perfect.

On the other hand, people are still fighting for effective communication (having an interpreter in the delivery room instead of via video link) and even the ADA Amendments act has not made much of a dent in employment discrimination.

Where the ADA has succeeded is in the incremental changes.  After 25 years, even the smallest businesses have made renovations, and many have taken up their obligations under the ADA to make those renovated areas accessible.  Increased access has led to a certain level of normalization; fewer people freak out when they see a disabled person.

One very ugly feature of the current socio-political landscape for people with disabilities is the growing hysteria that is the assisted suicide movement.  In 2015, assisted suicide legislation was introduced in 17 states in the U.S., defeated in some, and postponed in others.  In Canada one province has legalized euthanasia, and the Canadian Supreme Court has reversed its 1993 ruling in the Rodriguez case, and said that assisted suicide is A-OK for people with disabilities.

In 1990 I looked forward to transit access, usable print materials, more sign language interpreters, acceptance of HIV/AIDS.  What I didn’t expect is that 25 years later I would be immersed in a struggle for the lives of people with disabilities.  I didn’t expect to be confronting the great shout of the assisted suicide promoters; “WE’D RATHER BE DEAD THAN DISABLED.”  I didn’t know the effect this constant message would have on those of us who believe disability is something to be proud of.  I didn’t count on the division in the disability community; between those who want to believe that assisted suicide is an expression of autonomy and those of us who believe that there can be no free choice to die as long as we don’t have a free choice in where and how to live.  I didn’t expect the level of fear and apathy that I’ve found among people with disabilities, the reluctance to speak out about threats and abuse in the medical system.  And I certainly didn’t anticipate working side-by-side with people of faith with whom I disagree on many political and social issues.

We knew that the ADA would not end disability discrimination.  What we didn’t know is that we would have to be fighting 25 years later against the ultimate, deadliest form of discrimination.

There is a generation of disabled people who have never known a world without the ADA.  Many are exceptional advocates with an untarnished belief in their right to access and supports for full integration.  When I hear their outrage at the assisted suicide movement, I feel both comforted and inspired.
There are others who grew up with the ADA who think the struggle is over.  They want to get on with their lives, don’t want to get stuck in the “disability ghetto.”  Maybe they think that as a middle-class, skilled professional they will never be considered just another cripple.
My response is to paraphrase Justin Dart; “get involved in politics as if your life depended on it, because it does.”
Be well
-AH

Amy Hasbrouck
Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet
tigrlily61 @ gmail.com
http://tvndy.ca | https://facebook.com/ToujoursVivantNotDeadYet
Skype: tigrlily
450-921-3057
Valleyfield, Québec, Canada

Coleman letter published in Albany Times Union

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The Albany Times Union has editorialized and reported, recently and often, in favor of New York bills to legalize assisted suicide.  A letter I sent in response to one such editorial was published July 12:

Assisted suicide safeguards ignored

It’s hard to say whether the assisted suicide promoters featured in “A right to die with dignity” (July 1) are confused about the law or surprisingly revealing about their goals.

The new founder of Death With Dignity-Albany, holding a local meeting, talked about how horrible it was that her aunt had a feeding tube after irreparable brain damage. Feeding tubes can be removed based on the patient’s informed consent, advance directive or health care proxy’s decision. It has nothing to do with assisted suicide.

People attending the meeting wanted the proposed doctor-prescribed suicide law not to be limited to people who are predicted to die within six months or people who are considered mentally capable at the time the lethal drugs would be obtained.

The assisted suicide eligibility requirement of a six-month life expectancy, however unreliable in practice, is often touted as a “safeguard” in the so-called model Oregon law, though a 2015 bill in that state proposed to extend it to a one-year prognosis. The mental capability requirement is also a supposed safeguard, to protect against unscrupulous family members.

But these proponents’ attitudes show that assisted suicide laws may work more like highway speed limits. All too many people ignore them, no matter how many lives may be put at risk.

Diane Coleman

President/CEO, Not Dead Yet

www.notdeadyet.org

Rochester

 

NDY Press Release: Disability rights advocates are having a busy week opposing legalization of assisted suicide

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[Editor’s note:  The PRWeb version of this press release including a photo of NDY Board Chair Anne Sommers is available in pdf format here.]

Not Dead Yet leaders as well as advocates from several national and local disability rights groups are having a busy week opposing assisted suicide laws being considered by legislatures in California and the District of Columbia as well as a Tennessee court this week.

The California Assembly Health Committee was scheduled to hear testimony on that state’s assisted suicide bill, the End of Life Options Act (SB 128), until proponents of the law withdrew it from a scheduled hearing earlier this week.

In a statement issued by the coalition Californians Against Assisted Suicide, Marilyn Golden of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund was quoted stating, “Those of us advocating on behalf of disability rights organizations understand that choice is a myth in the context of our health care reality. End-of-life treatment options are already limited for millions of people—constrained by poverty, disability discrimination, and other obstacles. Adding this so-called ‘choice’ into our dysfunctional healthcare system will push people into cheaper lethal options. There is no assurance everyone will be able to choose treatment over suicide; no material assistance for families of limited means who are struggling to care for loved ones; no meaningful protection from abusive family members or caregivers.”

Meanwhile, the District of Columbia is holding the first public hearing hearing on its assisted suicide bill, B21-38, on Friday, July 10. Not Dead Yet’s board chairperson, Anne Sommers, will be testifying, as well as board member Samantha Crane. Crane will testify on behalf of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, where she works as director of public policy. Lindsay Baran, policy analyst with the National Council on Independent Living, and Shira Wakschlag, staff attorney and special assistant to the CEO of The Arc of the United States, will also be testifying.

Baran expressed concerns about the interaction of pressures to cut health care costs with assisted suicide legislation. “Over and over we see insurance providers override physician recommendations due to cost,” Baran said. “As someone with a physical disability who has undergone many treatments and surgeries throughout my life, this is something I’ve experienced personally. I’ve had coverage for expensive medications and treatments denied and important procedures delayed.”

Sommers addressed the problem of societal attitudes about dignity implicit in the bill’s title, Death With Dignity, and the reasons that Oregon doctors report as underlying requests for assisted suicide. “Legalizing assisted suicide sends the wrong message to anyone who depends on caregivers – the message that feeling like a burden is not only an acceptable reason for suicide,” said Sommers, “but a justification for our health care system to provide you the lethal means.”

Also on Friday, the Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville, Tennessee will hold a hearing on the government defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings in a case brought by John Jay Hooker to legalize assisted suicide (Case No. 15-0615-II). Disability advocates from Tennessee Not Dead Yet as well as the Tennessee Disability Coalition plan to attend the proceeding. Tennessee Not Dead Yet leader Josue Rodriguez testified passionately at the June 9th Health and Welfare Committee hearing on Tennessee’s assisted suicide bill, describing the suicidal despair that disability discrimination drove him to at an earlier point

NDY Press Release: Disability Activists Urge Princeton University to Denounce Professor Peter Singer’s Comments, Call for His Resignation

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[Editor’s Note: For a PDF formatted version of this press release, go here.]

Princeton, NJ (PRWEB) June 09, 2015

Disability rights activists from Pennsylvania Not Dead Yet and New Jersey centers for independent living, as well as groups representing parents of people with disabilities, will be marching to Princeton University and holding a protest on June 10, 2015. Activists want Princeton to publicly denounce recent statements by Professor Peter Singer, promoting ending the lives of disabled infants through denial of health care, and for Princeton to take other steps to address what the activists describe as Singer’s “hate speech” toward disabled people.

“Since about 1980, Singer has promoted public policy that would legalize the killing of disabled infants in the first month of life,” said Stephen Drake, Not Dead Yet’s research analyst and expert on Singer. “More recently, he has expanded his position in the context of health care rationing.”

In 2009, the New York Times Magazine published an article by Singer titled ‘Why We Must Ration Health Care.’ In the article Singer spoke hypothetically of assigning a life with quadriplegia as roughly half that of a life without any disability at all. On this basis, Singer laid out a case for denying health care to people with significant disabilities on the basis that these lives have less value than the lives of nondisabled people. A response signed by 20 disability rights organizations was submitted to the magazine, criticizing the decision to seek out Singer as an analyst of healthcare and for the specific content of the article.

“This was probably Peter Singer’s most direct assault on the value of the lives of people with physical disabilities past the age of infancy,” said Drake.

On April 26, 2015 on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” Singer again rationalized the killing of disabled infants. Three days later, the National Council on Disability, a council appointed by the U.S. President to provide advice on disability policy, issued a press statement on Singer’s comments during the show. According to the NCD release:

Singer told Klein that health care rationing is already happening, and surmised that hospitals routinely make decisions not based on need, but rather on cost. He then used the presumed practice to rationalize the killing of disabled infants by arguing in support of “non-voluntary euthanasia” for human beings who Singer contends are not capable of understanding the choice between life and death, including “severely disabled infants, and people who through accident, illness, or old age have permanently lost the capacity to understand the issue involved.”

In addition, Not Dead Yet issued a petition to Princeton through change.org.

“We understand the importance of academic freedom,” said Alan Holdsworth of Not Dead Yet Pennsylvania. “But Princeton has a policy on ‘Respect for Others’ which ‘deplores expressions of hatred directed against any individual or group.’ If Singer’s comments about killing disabled babies don’t qualify as hatred toward a group, then I don’t know what does.”

Protesters are demanding that Princeton take four actions to address Singer’s comments:

  • Call for Singer’s resignation.
  • Publicly denounce Singer’s comments.
  • Hire a bioethicist from the disability community in a comparable position to provide a platform for views that contrast with his.
  • Create a disability policy program at Princeton to educate future leaders on an inclusive community.