Canada: Updates on Assisted Suicide Appeal in British Columbia

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A few updates:

Norm Kunc, who has cerebral palsy, says it’s naive to think that legalizing assisted death wouldn’t have implications on people with disabilities and he fears someone else could decide his life isn’t worth living.

I suspect there will be further coverage of today’s court developments and the reactions of stakeholder tonight and tomorrow morning.  Look for it here tomorrow.

Canada: Appeals Court Hearing on Assisted Suicide in British Columbia; Amy Hasbrouck of Not Dead Yet Canada Quoted in Vancouver Sun

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From the Vancouver Sun:

Castlegar mother Ann Fomenoff misses her dead daughter Gloria Taylor every day.

But the 85-year-old does not question the battle waged by Taylor to change the laws that criminalized doctor-assisted dying.

To honour her daughter, who has ALS and died in October aged 64, Fomenoff will be in B.C. Court of Appeal today as the federal government begins its appeal of a 2012 decision by the B.C. Supreme Court. That decision ruled that criminalizing doctor-assisted death was a violation of the constitutional rights of Taylor and two other plaintiffs.

After a long session from supporters of assisted suicide, the article turns to the opponents of legalization of assisted suicide:

Intervener status in the case has been granted to the Council of Canadians with Disabilities and the Canadian Association for Community Living.

Amy Hasbrouck is coordinator of Not Dead Yet Canada, a project of the C0uncil, and travelled to Vancouver from Quebec for the court proceedings.

She supports the federal government decision to appeal.

Hasbrouck contended people with disabilities who wish to end their lives are not treated the same way as an able-bodied person, like a troubled teen.

“When a person with a disability expresses those feelings, those are the same feelings that a non-disabled person expresses when they want to kill themselves,” said Hasbrouck.

“But when a non-disabled person says, ‘I want to die, my life is terrible, my life is worthless, I can’t go on living this way,’ our society says, ‘We want to prevent your suicide’,” she said.

“But when a person with a disability says the exact same thing, society says ‘We want to help your suicide’.”

NDY is grateful for the involvement of the Canadian Association for  Community Living and the Council of Canadians with Disabilities.  We’re especially grateful to Amy Hasbrouck for the time, energy and effort she is exerting in making this trip and making sure the disability rights perspective is heard.  Check back daily this week for additional coverage.

Rochester Disability Community Remembers Disabled Victims of Domestic Violence, Deaf Victims of Euthanasia as Part of National Disability Mourning Day

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Rochester Disability Community Remembers Disabled Victims of
Domestic Violence, Deaf Victims of Euthanasia as Part of National Mourning Day

As part of a nation-wide Day of Mourning, local disability rights advocates will be holding a memorial service this Friday called “Remembering Lives Taken” to honor the lives of disabled people murdered by their families and caretakers.  Rochester activists will also call attention to the recent euthanasia of two deaf men in Belgium.

Domestic violence against people with disabilities has been a pressing issue for local disability rights activists following recent deaths in New York State. In 2006, Ulysses Stable, a twelve-year-old autistic boy, was stabbed to death by his father in their Bronx home. In 2010, Laura Cummings, a 23-year-old North Collins woman with an intellectual disability, was tortured to death after years of physical abuse by her mother and brother. Later that year, pharmaceutical millionaire Gigi Jordan killed her eight-year-old autistic son, Jude Mirra, with an overdose of prescription medications in Manhattan. Also in 2010, Kenneth Holmes, a twelve-year-old autistic boy from the Bronx, was shot by his mother in a murder-suicide. In 2011,  Julie Cirella, a Long Island eight-year-old with cerebral palsy, was killed by her mother, who fed her peanut M&Ms to induce anaphylactic shock due to Cirella’s severe allergy.

The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, Not Dead Yet, and the National Council on Independent Living held the first Day of Mourning in 2012 as a response to the murder of George Hodgins, a 22-year-old autistic man from California.

30 cases occurring in the US, in which a disabled person was killed by a family member, have been reported by the media in the last five years. The number of actual murders that occurred in that time is likely higher than the cases which received press coverage.

Little public attention is paid to the murders of people with disabilities. Media coverage and public discourse about such killings frequently justifies them as “understandable” and sometimes “merciful,” rather than appropriately condemning these crimes and those who commit them. The national Day of Mourning is a time for the disability community to commemorate the many lives cut short. By honoring disabled victims of murder and celebrating the lives that they lived, these vigils send a message that disability is not a justification for violence.

The Remembering Lives Taken Memorial Service will be held this Friday at 11:00 AM at the Center for Disability Rights, 497 State Street, Rochester.

—

Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) is an inclusive international non-profit organization run by and for autistic people.  ASAN seeks to advance the vision of the disability rights movement in the world of autism. Drawing on the principles of the cross-disability community on issues such as inclusive education and community living, ASAN focuses on organizing the community of autistic adults and youth to have our voices heard in the national conversation about us. In addition, ASAN works to advance the idea of neurological diversity by furthering the view that the goal of autism advocacy should not be to create a world without autistic people. Instead, it should be to create a world in which autistic people enjoy the same access, rights, and opportunities as all other citizens.

Not Dead Yet is a national, grassroots disability rights group that opposes legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia as deadly forms of discrimination against old, ill and disabled people. Not Dead Yet helps organize and articulate opposition to these practices based on secular social justice arguments. Not Dead Yet demands the equal protection of the law for the targets of so called “mercy killing” whose lives are seen as worthless.

The National Council on Independent Living is the longest-running national cross-disability, grassroots organization run by and for people with disabilities. Founded in 1982, NCIL represents thousands of organizations and individuals including: Centers for Independent Living (CILs), Statewide Independent Living Councils (SILCs), individuals with disabilities, and other organizations that advocate for the human and civil rights of people with disabilities throughout the United States.

Amy Hasbrouck – ‘Amour’ and Fear: Assisted Suicide/Mercy Killing at the Oscars

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AMOUR AND FEAR: ASSISTED SUICIDE AT THE OSCARS

By Amy E. Hasbrouck

Once again, a film about “euthanasia” has won an Oscar.  Back in the ‘70s the tear-jerker movies were about people dying of cancer.  In the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was people dying of AIDS.  For the 21st century, the new chic is euthanasia/assisted suicide/”mercy killing” movies.  Million Dollar Baby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The English Patient, The Sea Inside, Un Dimanche à Kigali, Le Temps qui Reste, The Barbarian Invasion (Les Invasions Barbares), Magnus – all have taken on euthanasia/assisted suicide/”mercy killing” from the point of view of non-disabled white people and come to the same conclusion; great idea!

Now we have the film Amour, directed by Michael Haneke, whose leading actors took the Palm d’Or at Cannes in 2012.  The story concerns Anna and George, an elderly couple, former music teachers who live in a nice apartment in Paris.  After a series of strokes, Anna is partially paralyzed and her memory begins to fail.  The couple withdraws, refusing contact and the help of friends, relatives and neighbours, while George cares for Anna as her mental and physical abilities decline.  In the end he suffocates her.

Given the film industry’s adoration of movies that end with a man “lovingly” killing a spouse, it was no surprise when Amour was awarded an Oscar for Best Foreign Picture.

In the real world, many studies have shown that in cases of “assisted suicide”/euthanasia/”mercy killing in elderly couples, the woman is generally an unwilling victim, and there is often a history of domestic violence.  This fact is rarely reflected in the superficial media coverage in the immediate aftermath of such gruesome crimes.  By the time the truth of the matter has been uncovered, the media spotlight has moved on, and the public is left with the same false impression; “he did it for love.”

There has been almost no discussion in the francophone media of the disability and human rights problems with the narrative of Amour, and little in the Anglophone press either.  No critics questioned the film’s seemingly inevitable ending, or George’s motives for killing his wife.  Not surprising, but disappointing anyway.

It’s troubling that films like this come out so often, but fail to educate the public about the real issues in assisted suicide and euthanasia.  In the case of Clint Eastwood’s film, his consistent and vocal opposition to the Americans with Disabilities Act suggests a possible motive for killing off his disabled protagonist.  For other writers and filmmakers, the examination of the issue generally arises more from fear of disability, unresolved grief, or other feelings common to non-disabled people.

Like other media portrayals, these films usually show people with disability either as sad, tragic and incapable victims, or as inspirational over-achievers, but never as ordinary human beings.  Nor do the filmmakers focus on their struggles against the external barriers and discrimination that limit their life options, focusing instead on the physical changes that are natural to the human experience.

The message is clear; the lives of those of us with disabilities are not worth living.  We are better off dead, and the sooner the better.  These attitudes only perpetuate fear of and discrimination against disabled people, and the more often this lie is spoken, the deeper entrenched the fear becomes.  Through that discrimination, the lie becomes the truth, and pressure grows to allow assisted suicide and euthanasia for old, ill and disabled people.

Amy E. Hasbrouck is the director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, a project of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities that unites people with disabilities who oppose assisted suicide, euthanasia and other discriminatory end-of-life practices.

BBC – Liz Carr Presents ‘When Assisted Death is Legal” (Euthanasia Road Trip) Part 2

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Liz Carr, wearing a tshirt with the label Euthanasia Road Trip, outside Dignitas, in SwitzerlandCorrecting an oversight in yesterday’s blog post, to the left is a picture of Liz Carr, shared with her permission, that was taken as she arrived at the “Holy Grail of assisted suicide tourism, the Little Blue House aka Dignitas” (taken from her description of the photo on Facebook).

In Part 2 of her Euthanasia Road Trip, Carr visits the Netherlands and then goes to the US states of Oregon and Washington, which both have legalized assisted suicide for a relatively narrow range of people.

In the Netherlands, Carr spends most of her time with NVVE – both with representatives and at a conference they hosted. NVVE is a “right to die” advocacy group in the Netherlands.  Carr notes how the practice of euthanasia has expanded over time in the Netherlands and where it seems to be going now:

About 3000 people died through euthanasia last year. About 3 percent of total deaths, a number which increases each year. They’re mainly cancer patients, but the latest discussion in the Netherlands is about extending the law to another group of people – the over 70s, who may not be ill or dying but are simply tired of life or as NVVE call it, people who have reached a “completed life.” (Quotation marks around term “completed life” added by editor)

After further discussion eligibility of those who have reached a “completed life” with an NVVE member, Carr tells us:

Completed life is going to be the next major debate in relation to assisted suicide and euthanasia in the Netherlands.

Once in the US, Carr interviews both proponents and opponents of assisted suicide – they’re informative and revealing.  Among others, she interviews Barbara Coombs Lee of Compassion, and Choices, Kenneth Stevens of Physicians for Compassionate Care and disability activist/advocate Marilyn Golden.  These are interviews you should listen to, even if you think you’ve heard it all from players in Oregon and Washington state.  You’ll definitely hear some different slants and/or new info – I did.

While even proponents can’t point to any kind of hard evidence that the law has applied to a broader range of people than the law allows, the system in both states makes actual practices hard to verify.  What will the future look like?  Here’s Carr again:

So is it the case that once you introduce assisted suicide and euthanasia for one group that it’s naturally extended to others and that the numbers increase? People talk about a slippery slope in relation to assisted suicide and euthanasia and I’m worried that that’s what it actually means – that once a law’s in, it’s much easier to extend it.

As it turns out, there’s plenty of reason to expect that to happen here in the United States, once the assisted suicide advocates feel that they’ve reached some kind of “critical mass” both in terms of the number of states legalizing assisted suicide and the amount of public support for it.

And that’s where we revisit the concept of “slippery slopes.”  Carr has given us a brilliant and useful definition for one aspect – or definition – for the slope.  As long-time readers of this blog might remember, “right to die” advocate Margaret Battin and colleagues published an article looking at the same countries Liz Carr did – and declared no evidence of a “slippery slope,” because their definition of the slope didn’t include “expansion of eligibility and practice.”

In the past, I’ve talked about another aspect or definition of the slippery slope – the “slippery slope” can be a political strategy, better known as an incrementalist strategy.

If you listen to Carr’s interviews and commentary, it’s clear that expansion of practices in the European countries didn’t just happen – there were – and are – groups that laid groundwork for the expansion.

There’s good evidence the same groundwork is being laid here.  For example, Compassion and Choices has an active campaign to promote VSED – Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking – for people who aren’t terminally ill but want to die.  So far, that means people who are elderly and “tired of living.”  They have also gotten hospice professionals on board to facilitate the process for elderly people who choose to end their lives this way.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to predict that – within a few years – Compassion and Choices will switch gears.  They’ll point out that more and more doctors are cooperating with nonterminally ill patients who want to die through VSED.  They’ll add that – unfortunately – dying through VSED isn’t acceptable to a number of people.  The punchline will be this – “If these people who are “tired of life” have the right to starve themselves to death, shouldn’t they have the right to assisted suicide?”

For clarity’s sake, I’m not holding my formulation of slippery slope as better than the one Liz Carr ended up being concerned with.  I think they’re both valid and they’re both useful.  Carr backs up her definition with instances of how things have worked in other countries – that’s both new and extremely useful for us all.

Having listened to both parts of the “Euthanasia Road Trip” documentary at least 3 time through, I appreciate Carr’s work more than every.  She had barely 50 minutes to work with – 50 minutes in which she covered 3 European countries and 2 American states.  All that and she managed to make it engaging and informative – I don’t think there’s a wasted minute.  It’s a fantastic piece and can’t recommend it enough.

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