Maryland Disability Rights Advocates Make Strong Showing In Hearing on Assisted Suicide Bill

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On Tuesday, March 10, the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee conducted a hearing on Senate Bill 676, which would legalize assisted suicide in the state of Maryland if passed.

Crosby King testified on behalf on Not Dead Yet.  Below is an excerpt of his written testimony. The full text is available here.

We already see innocent people feeling pressured and pushed towards assisted suicide for the sake of their family.  Last year in Oregon, 40% of assisted suicide users were reported as feeling like a burden on family and caregivers.

As proponents themselves admit, and as Oregon’s physician reporting form demonstrates, it is social factors that make up the suffering this bill talks about.  Doctors report people choosing suicide because of loss of dignity, loss of autonomy, feeling like a burden, and loss of control of bodily functions.

These reasons suggest a meaning of dignity that is fragile and easily lost through disability and dependence on others.  The people acting on these views, proponents admit, tend to be wealthier, better educated, and people with a strong preference for control.  This is presented as a good thing.

Assisted suicide proponents are also overwhelmingly white.  97.1% of program suicides in Oregon have been white, in a state 22% nonwhite.  The Pew Research Center found in 2013 that, while whites support assisted suicide 53%-44%, black and Latino voters register 65% opposition.  We have a public health problem, but it isn’t certain people’s lack of dignity, it’s the turn to suicide as a social solution by a powerful social class.  High rates of white suicide are already a social problem.

Samantha Crane, who is on the NDY Board of Directors, testified before the Committee on behalf of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network in her role as the Director of Public Policy of that organization. Below is an excerpt from her written testimony. The full text can be found here.

ASAN believes that physician-assisted suicide legislation like HB 1021 discriminates against people who are aging, ill, or disabled. During the course of its advocacy for people with disabilities, we repeatedly encounter attitudes that life with a disability – including not only developmental disability but also disability caused by age or illness – is “undignified” and that people with disabilities cannot live happy lives at home among their loved ones.

The belief that it is better to die than to depend on others for assistance is central to arguments in favor of so-called “death with dignity.” Much of the testimony you hear today will focus on the “indignity” of needing help to eat, move, or take medications. In Oregon, which passed nearly identical legislation, 93% of those who died from physician-assisted suicide in 2013 cited “loss of autonomy,” or disability, as a motivation. Less than 28% cited concerns about pain control.

Also testifying was Richard Davis, Director of Public Policy for The Arc Maryland. Below is an excerpt from his testimony, with the full text available here.

The Arc Maryland’s concerns include lack of protections, historic discrimination in the medical field based on perceived ‘quality of life’ of persons with disabilities, and lack of treatment and other options for individuals with I/DD (such as palliative care, suicide prevention, mental health services, support services, etc.). Our constituency is unduly vulnerable to coercion by trusted individuals and professionals.

The bill provides no guarantees that persons who are terminally ill (including those with and without I/DD) will have rights to access all available options, and there is no guarantee that once a person is given their diagnosis, that they will also have the right to access mental health care in order to process the grieving cycle that may take place before making a potentially life-ending decision.

 

 

“New Scientist” Reporter Goes Over Oregon Assisted Suicide Data With NDY’s Diane Coleman

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A newly-published article in New Scientist includes a section in which reporter Clare Wilson reports on actual Oregon data on assisted suicide after a go-through with NDY CEO and founder Diane Coleman. It’s rare – almost unheard of – for a reporter to go into this kind of detail on assisted suicide in Oregon. The same is true of bioethicists weighing in on the topic. Here’s the section of the article dealing with data in “2015 a watershed year for assisted suicide in the US“:

Diane Coleman, head of advocacy group Not Dead Yet, which opposes assisted suicide, says the Oregon Health Authority’s annual reports on the practice show the law there isn’t working as intended. She points to the motives people gave for choosing this option. According to the latest figures, released on 12 February, only a third of people who took a prescribed lethal dose of medication in 2014 cited pain or fear of pain as one of the reasons for doing so.

Supporters of assisted suicide often cite pain as a primary reason why people should have the legal right to die. But the state’s report showed that people’s concerns tended toward loss of autonomy (91 per cent), loss of dignity (71 per cent) or being a burden on their family (40 per cent). Coleman is particularly concerned that people are choosing assisted suicide because they feel they are a burden. “To me that feels more like a duty to die than a choice to die,” she says.

What’s more, according to the data available for Oregon, some people waited longer than six months between asking for the overdose and taking it. It isn’t stated how many times this happened, but at least some people lived a few years after obtaining the drugs. Coleman is concerned that this means people are being accepted for assisted suicide who don’t meet the criteria of havingless than six months to live. “Those people were not actually terminally ill,” she says.

What do the supporters have to say? Not much of substance, really. But please go read the entire article at the source. This is a good article – especially as it pertains to Not Dead Yet. It should be rewarded with a bump in people accessing the article. Please click here to read the entire article.

Belated Update on Wisconsin Case: ASAN Files Second Amicus Brief for NDY and 13 Other Disability Groups

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[This announcement is from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and originally appeared on Feb. 2, 2015.]

On Monday January 26, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Not Dead Yet, and 13 other disability rights organizations filed a second amicus brief in a case defending the rights of people with disabilities to basic medical care.

Disability Rights Wisconsin filed the initial lawsuit, Disability Rights Wisconsin v. University of Wisconsin Hospital Centers et al., in 2009 after one thirteen-year-old died and one adult – both of whom had illnesses that were easily treatable – were denied care for treatable illnesses like pneumonia. University of Wisconsin Hospital physicians had advised families to withdraw antibiotics, nutrition, and hydration, citing their patients’ supposedly low quality of life as individuals with disabilities. When the teenager’s regular caregivers objected to withdrawing treatment, UWHC physicians allegedly encouraged the family to have him transferred to the University of Wisconsin Hospital, where he was taken off of antibiotics, nutrition, and hydration, and transferred to hospice care. He died the next day. In both cases, doctors had made assumptions about their patients’ “quality of life” without speaking to them or to the people they spent the most time with. They also had failed to seek approval from a court or hospital ethics committee.

“If these people hadn’t had developmental disabilities, there is no question that they would have been given this basic medical care,” said ASAN’s Director of Public Policy, Samantha Crane, who authored the brief. “Instead, these doctors used acute illnesses as an opportunity to take away the medications, food, and water that their patients needed to live. This essentially amounts to opportunistic euthanasia of people with disabilities.”

ASAN’s amicus brief was authored in collaboration with Not Dead Yet, a disability rights organization that advocates against legalization of assisted suicide, euthanasia, and non-voluntary denial of lifesaving treatment for people with disabilities. The brief argues that UWHC’s policies are emblematic of pervasive, nationwide medical discrimination against people with disabilities and that legal protections are necessary to protect vulnerable individuals from deadly denials of care.

“The concern that many of us with lifelong severe disabilities have is that children with disabilities are not receiving the same legal protection as nondisabled children,” said Diane Coleman, Not Dead Yet’s President and CEO. “A disabled child with parents who prefer to withhold medical care that would save the child, or who succumb to pressure from hospital doctors to withhold care, should not be permitted to deprive their child of a future just because the parents and doctor harbor common prejudices against life with disability.”

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals had rejected Disability Rights Wisconsin’s claim that UWHC doctors had violated patients’ rights under the constitutions of either Wisconsin or the United States, leading to this appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. ASAN had filed an amicus brief with the Appeals Court in May. Under Wisconsin law, the Court can decide whether or not to accept the appeal for review.

Under Wisconsin law, parents of nondisabled children are required to provide medical care when necessary to save the child’s life. In 2013, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the homicide convictions of parents who had failed to seek medical attention for their child, who died of untreated diabetes.

UWHC Ethics Committee Chair Norman Fost, who is also a defendant in the lawsuit, has taken multiple controversial positions on the rights of children with disabilities, including his defense of the use of electric shocks to modify the behavior of children and adults with disabilities and his support of the “Ashley Treatment,” which involves removing the reproductive organs and artificially stunting the growth of children with developmental disabilities.

ADAPT, American Association of People with Disabilities, American Council of the Blind, Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living, Autism Women’s Network, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, National Association of the Deaf, National Council on Independent Living, National Disability Rights Network, Quality Trust for Individuals With Disabilities, United Spinal Association, and the Wisconsin Board for People With Developmental Disabilities also joined the amicus brief.

Click here to download a copy of the brief, or click here for an accessible version in Word format.

Media Advisory: New York Disability Rights Group Opposes NY Assisted Suicide Bill

Our News & Commentary Blog

[Editor’s Note:  This media advisory is also available through PRWeb in PDF format here.]

A bill to legalize assisted suicide has been introduced in the NYS Assembly (A2129), and will be introduced Monday, Feb. 9 in the Senate by Brad Hoylman and Diane Savino, according to the assisted suicide advocacy group, Compassion and Choices. Not Dead Yet is a national disability group based in New York which opposes assisted suicide legislation, and the group’s leaders are available for interviews.

“Every major national disability organization that has taken a position on assisted suicide opposes legalizing it,” says Diane Coleman, president of Not Dead Yet, a national disability group based in Rochester, New York. “This includes ADAPT, the National Council on Independent Living, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF), among others.”

As DREDF’s Marilyn Golden said, “If this bill passes, some people’s lives will be ended without their consent, through mistakes and abuse. No safeguards have ever been enacted or proposed that can prevent this outcome, which can never be undone.”

The NY proposal is based on the law that was passed by public referendum in Oregon. While proponents claim that Oregon is a successful experiment, the evidence indicates otherwise. “The Oregon assisted suicide reports show that the top five reasons doctors report for giving lethal prescriptions are related to disability, not terminal status,” said Coleman.

For opinion pieces from disability advocates published by CNN, the New Jersey Star Ledger, Counterpunch and other outlets, go to the op-ed links on the Not Dead Yet website.

The disability rights opposition to legalizing assisted suicide is an essential part of the discussion which should be included in coverage of the issue. Contact information for spokespersons available for interviews are listed below:

Diane Coleman
President/CEO
Not Dead Yet
Rochester, NY
dcoleman(at)notdeadyet(dot)org
(708) 420-0539

Stephen Drake
Research Analyst
Not Dead Yet
Rochester, NY
sdrake(at)notdeadyet(dot)org
585-353-7438

John B. Kelly
Director
Second Thoughts
Boston, MA
(617) 536-5140

Marilyn Golden
Senior Policy Analyst
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF)
Berkeley, CA
(510) 703-0696

NDY Introduces Disability Rights Toolkit for Advocacy Against Legalization of Assisted Suicide

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With assisted suicide bills pending in many states, disability rights advocates are needed to help oppose them.  Not Dead Yet Colorado just played a pivotal role in defeating an assisted suicide bill in that state, but bills are pending or expected in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, the District of Columbia and more.

Many of the national disability rights groups that oppose assisted suicide bills have chapters, affiliates and members in these states, so Not Dead Yet has developed a Toolkit to assist them in advocating successfully.  NDY’s Disability Rights Toolkit for Advocacy Against Legalization of Assisted Suicide has embedded links to excellent resources on the assisted suicide issue, many of them provided by the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, including a very important legislative primer entitled “A Progressive Case Against Assisted Suicide Laws.”

The seven sections of the NDY Toolkit cover:

  1. Why disability advocacy groups oppose legalizing assisted suicide
  2. Educating and organizing disability opposition
  3. Meeting with legislators and policy leaders
  4. Testifying at hearings
  5. Working with the media
  6. Conducting direct actions – leafleting, rallying
  7. Working in coalition

Advocacy organizations may also like to include an article on the issue in organizational newsletters:  Why Do Disability Rights Organizations Oppose Assisted Suicide Laws?

We encourage advocates to contact Diane Coleman or John Kelly at NDY or Marilyn Golden at DREDF for information and assistance in using the NDY Toolkit and working to oppose the dangers inherent in assisted suicide laws.