NJ Attorney Compares Death Penalty and Assisted Suicide, Finds Both Unworkable

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An interesting op ed appeared in the Times of Trenton late last month, comparing death penalty and assisted suicide laws.  H. John Witman III is a retired attorney who practiced for nearly 20 years in the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is a member of the board of directors of the Progressive Center for Independent Living, one of the New Jersey disability organizations that opposes the pending assisted suicide bill.  But his reasoning is not what we typically see.  Excerpts follow below:

The unlikely alliance in opposition to the New Jersey bill — disability rights advocates, faith-based organizations and medical professionals — itself signals that something is fundamentally wrong with assisted suicide laws. I offer a practical assessment that, whether or not assisted suicide is ethically or morally right, whether or not its intentions are good, assisted suicide cannot work. It cannot work, just as the death penalty could not work.

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The death penalty is a relevant analogy. Assisted suicide is like the death penalty, because the state would prescribe a scheme by which a life can be intentionally and lawfully taken. New Jersey’s death penalty statute provided many layers of protection and review to assure that life would be taken fairly. As a result, in the years between enactment of the death penalty in 1982 and the report of the Death Penalty Study Commission in 2007, the New Jersey Supreme Court had overturned 57 of 60 death sentences and the remaining three were under appeal. The Legislature abolished the death penalty in 2007, on recommendation of the commission.

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Beyond the burdens of fair and workable administration, there is a feature that no protection, no procedure, indeed, no statute, can touch. Judges who gave statements to the Death Penalty Study Commission implied that, ultimately, even some of the death penalty decisions were arbitrary or subjective. The decision to take one’s own life is as private and, perhaps, as subjective a decision as can be made.

The state can never know what subtle coercions make one choose to take one’s own life, or worse, cause one to decide that another’s life is not worth living.

John Witman’s entire op ed can be read here.

Our Board Members Have Been Busy on Many Fronts

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Over the past month or so, we’ve shared some press coverage that included some of our board members.  It seems like it’s as good a time as any to share some of the NDY-related activity that some of our board members have engaged in recently.  This is not a complete list – we’ll try to share some updates later on the rest of the board.  For more info on our board members, check out this link.

On November 24th, Yonkers Voice published this extended interview with Mike Volkman. Mike shared information about growing up disabled in a world filled with barriers. The brief bio serves as a context to help explain the opposition to legalized assisted suicide that he, Not Dead Yet, and disability activists maintain:

On December 3, DebateOut published extended interviews with board Member Samantha Crane and NDY Regional Director John Kelly. The interviews are parts of a larger back and forth that also features interviews with Philosophy professor Elizabeth Picciuto, bioethicist Art Caplan, and NY Compassion and Choices’ Ex. Dir. David Leven. The article features internal links to the full interviews. The link to Samantha Crane’s full interview is here. The link to John Kelly’s full interview is here.

Board member Bill Peace continues to address any and all disability issues at his blog Bad Cripple. He’s written about Brittany Maynard here, here and here in recent months.

Board member Robin Stephens has been traveling, educating and celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act with the ADA Legacy Tour Bus.

That’s all for now, but much more coming on what we are up to – NDY staff, board and activists all keeping up the fight against the pro-assisted suicide movement.

Guest Blog by Alan Holdsworth: Not Dead Yet Action in Philadelphia – Small Action, Small Victory

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On December 9th, a small group of disabled rights activists braved the rain and cold and held a protest outside State Representative Jordan Harris’s office in Philadelphia.

Unfortunately his office was up steps so we remained outside chanting and giving out flyers.

Fortunately he was in his office and came out to meet us and, after a short time, he agreed to meet with Not Dead Yet Pennsylvania on the 7th of January on our turf at Liberty Resources.

Jordan Harris was one of the co sponsors of the Death With Dignity Bill introduced this year into the House in Pennsylvania. There are plans to introduce it again next year. He said on his doorstep that he is now undecided as to whether to support it.

The good thing about this is that we will get a lot of disabled people to this meeting (weather permitting), which will hopefully change his mind about being a co-sponsor in 2015.

We are building a coalition and the resistance moves onwards, growing stronger everyday.

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Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) Condemns Exclusion of Disabled People at NJ Hearing on Assisted Suicide Bill

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The Autistic Self Advocacy Network  (ASAN) has issued a statement condemning the exclusion of disabled people from testifying at yesterday’s (Dec.7) hearing on a proposed assisted suicide bill in front of the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee:

(Excerpt)

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is deeply concerned about the omission of disabled people and representatives from disability rights organizations at yesterday’s hearing. Given that more than half of the groups in the New Jersey coalition opposing the bill are disability rights organizations and centers for independent living, it is unconscionable that the committee deliberately excluded witnesses from the disability community. Even after our community submitted a formal request for inclusion among the witnesses, the committee declined to invite a disability community representative.

Read the entire statement here.

New Jersey Senate Committee Shuts Out Disability Rights Community from Assisted Suicide Hearing

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On the website of the New Jersey coalition opposing the state’s assisted suicide bill, more than half of the New Jersey state groups listed are disability groups.  Specifically, they are centers for independent living run by people with disabilities, and the statewide independent living council mandated by federal law to plan the state’s independent living services for people with disabilities of all ages.

Nevertheless, in a move that has outraged both national and state disability rights advocates, the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee last week announced that there will be a hearing on the assisted suicide bill (S 382), with witnesses by invitation only and no disability witness invited.

The New Jersey Alliance Against Doctor-Prescribed Suicide is issuing a press release expressing outrage at this exclusion of the voice of disability rights advocates, as follows:

For Immediate Release Contact: Tim Rosales 929.244.3297

New Jersey Senate Committee Shuts Out Disability Rights Community from Assisted Suicide Hearing

Health Committee Chair Joseph F. Vitale Refuses Testimony Request from Disability Rights Organizations

(Trenton, NJ) – In a breathtaking turn of events, the committee scheduled to hear arguments today on assisted suicide bill S382 declined to invite the bill’s most vocal opponents, the disability rights community. When in June the Assembly bill was temporarily pulled for lack of votes, the Star-Ledger reported, “Disability advocates, fearing the legislation could be manipulated to prematurely end patients’ lives, turned out in force to testify against the bill.”

“We have been opposing assisted suicide for a generation,” said Diane Coleman of the national grassroots group “Not Dead Yet.” “Every major national disability rights organization that has taken a position on assisted suicide, opposes it.”

The Senate Health, Human Services and Seniors Committee posted an invitee list that included proponent group Compassion & Choices (the rebranded Hemlock Society), but left out opposing disability organizations. A formal request to the committee for inclusion was rejected.

“We have been excluded too long to allow this outrage to pass,” said John B. Kelly, New Jersey native and Executive Director of Second-Thoughts. “What is the Committee afraid of?”

Written testimony will be submitted to the Senate committee from a number of leading disability rights organizations, some of the statements will continue to be posted on our website and can be accessed by clicking here.

The New Jersey Alliance Against Doctor-Prescribed Suicide is a coalition of disability rights, healthcare, civil rights, faith-based and patient advocacy organizations opposed to doctor- prescribed suicide in New Jersey.

www.NoAssistedSuicideNJ.com

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The uninvited have, however, submitted written testimony, some of which John Kelly has posted on bluejersey.com.  One of these is very strongly worded testimony by the former executive director of the NJ Council on Developmental Disabilities, Ethan Ellis.  Here’s an excerpt:

I’m now  81 years old and I’ve come out of retirement to speak out against this well-meaning but murderous piece of legislation – at my age, I’ve earned the right to speak candidly and I will.

This bill is a matter of dollars and cents, not sense. Behind the scenes, it’s major supporters are those who will benefit financially from ending the lives of people rendered helpless by needless pain, rather than allowing us to live out our natural lives with dignity by paying for the palliative care that will relieve that pain. They’re easy to identify: health insurance companies, hospitals and, in some states, those officials who control or influence their budgets.

If you doubt it, look behind the experience they often cite as successful in Oregon. After the bill on which S 382 is based passed there with the sub rosa support of state officials, those same state officials removed the strongest, most effective painkillers from the list of drugs eligible for CMS reimbursement, encouraging those in unbearable pain to kill themselves because otherwise reliable relief was beyond their reach.

Mr. Ellis’ full testimony is online here.

Another New Jersey advocate to submit written testimony is Norman Smith, Board President of the Progressive Center for Independent Living, also representing two other organizations, Resources for Independent Living and Alliance Center for Independence.  Among other things, he wrote about disturbing personal encounters with emergency room doctors that are all too familiar to many of us (myself included):

A personal story that may explain my fear: I have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with doctors in emergency rooms. Often I can see the look in their eyes: their cold look of indifference as they deal with my medical situation and my Cerebral Palsy. My life has no value to them because they see my disability first. “Better off dead than like that” is in their eyes.

But then I can see their attitude change as they learn that I’m married, that I have a six-year old son, and that I have a job with responsibilities. They discover that I have a life that they put value on.

Mr. Smith’s full testimony is here.

Meanwhile, John Kelly has been coordinating with disability community advocates from national and out-of-state organizations who are adding their weight to the urgent message that the NJ Senate committee must hear from the group most negatively impacted by assisted suicide legislation, people with disabilities.  Their testimonies have been posted online:

The Committee is not expected to vote tomorrow, but whatever develops, we’ll try to keep you up to date.

All of our readers should be alert to the possibility of assisted suicide legislation in each of our home states.  Assisted suicide proponents are hoping to capitalize on the media storm that arose around the tragedy of Brittany Maynard’s death.  We will need to remind legislators that the people they need to be thinking about are the countless thousands of old, ill and disabled people whose lives are too often dismissed as worth-less.  We cannot let them forget who this is really about, and whose lives are at stake.