New Blog from Steve Gold: First Entry is a “Modest Proposal” on Health Care Reform

blog recommendations, bloggers, health care reform, Our News & Commentary Blog, policy, satire, Steve Gold

Steve Gold is a long time friend, ally and warrior in the disability rights movement. Of special interest to NDYers is that Steve was the primary author and Counsel of Record on the NDY amicus brief in the 1996 Supreme Court cases examining assisted suicide as a “constitutional right.” Steve has written and filed other briefs on behalf of NDY since then, some of which can be found here.

Many disability activists and advocates are on Steve’s mailing list or check his website for Steve Gold’s Nuggets of Information on housing, medical assistance/medicaid, nursing homes, education and other useful ADA-related information.

Steve has now joined the world of bloggers and blogging.

I expect to be checking SteveGoldADA regularly to see what he’s up to and what he’s writing.

Steve’s first entry cuts is a sort of “modest proposal” – with his own (tongue in cheek) suggestions on Preventing Health Care Reform from Burdening Our Country:

Every day 14,000 Americans lose their health coverage. More than 46 million people are without health care. But maybe many of these people really do not deserve and should not receive health care. Just because someone is poor or ill or disabled does not mean he or she deserves health care.

Similarly, many of the remaining millions of people who are already paying for private health insurance or are receiving publicly funded health care do not deserve the benefits they take for granted.

We must cut costs and the only fair way is to deny health care to all people who do not deserve to receive it.

Throughout the current health care debate, we have worn blind folds. In darkness, we have each touched a part of the health crisis, like the elephant’s tail, trunk, or ear. Based on what we touched, we thought we understood the problem and had the answers.

But just feeling up part of the animal is not enough. The trick is to figure out how we decide who really should not receive health care. Who is unworthy of receiving it? How we can persuade them not to request or receive health care? Once we figure this, we will significantly reduce our health costs.

The goal: Increase the number of people among us who should not receive health care because they do not worthy.

We have assumed that there is a health care crisis because of the health care insurance companies, the pharmaceutical drug companies, the doctors and hospitals, and the lawyers. But these folks represent only part of the trunk and the elephant’s left front foot.

No, the cause of the health crisis is much bigger. It’s them – those people who do not deserve unlimited health care – for themselves, for their children, for their parents.

Please read the rest here. And remember – it’s satire. Steve’s one of the good guys. –Stephen Drake

BMJ Editor Says He Doesn’t “Get” Disability Opposition to Assisted Suicide – Is He Really That Stupid or Just a Liar?

bioethics, jane campbell, media coverage, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality check, United Kingdom

I’m late getting to this one. Last month BMJ published an editorial by Deputy Editor Tony Delamothe titled “Assisted Dying: what’s disability got to do with it?“

Here’s his intro:

The debate on assisted dying has been hijacked by disabled people who want to live. It needs to be reclaimed for terminally ill people who want to die

Assisted dying, assisted suicide, assisted killing: call it what you will, I’m in favour of it as an option for terminally ill adults of sound mind who want to die. Nevertheless, I try hard to keep up with the arguments against it. I think I understand them all, with the exception of those emanating from various disability lobby groups.

Delacothe claims he doesn’t understand the arguments from disability rights groups. After reading his commentary, I can only guess that hasn’t bothered engage in any research or critical thinking in regard to the the disability activists who have actively opposed legalization of assisted suicide.

Either that, or he’s lying – and hoping his readers are both uninformed and stupid.

I’m leaning toward the latter explanation.

Here’s why:

Delacothe devotes a lot of space to discussing Jane Campbell’s statement during the debate in the House of Lords prior to the vote on the Falconer bill. Campbell, who has spinal muscular atrophy, spoke about meeting the “qualifications” for admission to a Dignitas clinic. Delacothe complains that she didn’t “tick off” a box saying she wanted to die and is therefore irrelevant to the debate. He conveniently omits any mention of the struggles her husband had during a recent health crisis – having to convince doctors that his wife’s life was one worth living – and saving. Or Campbell’s own concerns about how easily she could have been talked into an easy death in her debilitated state. (Quotes are in this blog entry – the links from the original news coverage aren’t working for me right now.)

Further, he discusses Debbie Purdy, a woman with muliple sclerosis, who wants assurances her husband won’t get prosecuted if he helps her go to Dignitas to commit suicide. Purdy is not terminally ill – she has a chronic condition with an uncertain trajectory. Likewise, Daniel James, a 23-year-old man whose parents took him to Dignitas due to his inability to adjust to life with paraplegia is mentioned by Delacothe. Since the parents of Daniel James were left alone by police and supported by the public, how is this not an issue that impacts directly on the lives of people with disabilities?

The short answer is that this is a disability issue. I strongly suspect that Delacothe knows that, but doesn’t want to argue with disability activists in an honest and open debate.

It’s easier to lie, especially when the rest of the editorial staff gives you a free pass.

If Delacothe ever loses his job as an editor at the BMJ, there’s a bright future for him in one of the more sensational tabloids. His willingness to distort facts and abuse his position of editorial privilege prove his qualifications for a job at one of those rags. –Stephen Drake

What Other Bloggers Are Saying: Turner & Kowalski on Suicide Prevention Week and Day In Washington on the Baucus Bill

blog recommendations, legislation, neurodiversity, Our News & Commentary Blog, policy, suicide

As often as possible, we like to make it a point to share what other bloggers (especially in the disability community) are saying about NDY-related topics.

Our friends at Turner & Kowalski are saying that Suicide Prevention Week Failed Bigtime and invite you to explore the Disability Implicit Association Test.

Day Al-Mohamed offers a “Quick Overview on Disability Issues” she’s found in the Baucus Health Reform Bill on the Day in Washington blog.

Please check these blogs out. They’re worth your time and attention. –Stephen Drake

Arizona Daily Star Romanticizes the Suicide of a Disabled Woman in a “Tribute”

euthanasia, media coverage, media issues, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality check, suicide, suicide prevention

Well, now that National Suicide Prevention Week is over, I guess the field is wide-open when it comes to romanticizing the suicides of people with disabilities in the popular press. Scary thought.

Just when I get to the point where I think I’ve seen everything in terms of sensationalized coverage that condones and sympathizes with the suicides of people with disabilities, something new comes along that shows me we haven’t hit bottom yet. That “yet” is a scary thought, too.

Just today, the Arizona Daily Star published “Helping others lightened the darkness in nurse/counselor’s life,” part of a series titled “Life Stories.” The series “chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tusconans.” Here are the first few paragraphs about Shari Hope Kelly:

There’s no telling how many souls Shari Hope Kelly escorted into the world during her decades as a labor and delivery nurse.

Nor can one quantify the innumerable psyches she soothed as a rape crisis counselor and an instructor in social science at Pima Community College.

And Kelly treated herself as compassionately as she did all others. She spent years thoughtfully formulating a plan. She long suspected the day would come when the physical pain of her disability and the emotional anguish over the abuses she suffered in childhood would outweigh her enjoyment of life.

Kelly wrote long letters to family and friends. She called people she knew to tell them how much they meant to her. She got the minutiae of her life in order. And she found a loving home for her service dog, John Denver, and her eight rescue cats. Only then did she release her spirit from her damaged body and troubled mind in an act she considered euthanasia. Kelly died at her own hand Aug. 11. She was 59.
“Treated herself compassionately?” “Release her spirit?”

In other words, Shari Kelly’s life, unlike most, was a second-by-second act of heroism. When she could no longer be the hero, she did the understandable and “compassionate” thing.

But here’s a little more info:

Kelly spent the first nine months of her life in a children’s hospital ward in Brooklyn, N.Y. An orthopedic deformity required multiple surgeries that left her with clubbed feet, fused ankle bones and the need for leg braces when she learned to walk.

Kelly’s parents divorced when she was 7 and her mother remarried. It was around then that a relative began physically abusing Kelly, said her brother, Ron Reddock of Tombstone, who was three years younger than his sister. He was the only person who knew the depths of torment she suffered.
A few friends and family describe the ways in which she reached out and enriched the lives of others. But I have to wonder – because the reporter doesn’t – was maybe Kelly a better friend to others than others were to her?

I ask that, because I have to wonder if anyone – anyone at all – asked why Kelly was giving away her cats. Or why she gave away her service dog. That is really really rare – I personally don’t know anyone who has done that. It takes something extraordinary for it to happen.

I also went to her online memorial and the guest book. For all the lives she touched, people she helped, people she reached out to — there are only four entries in the guest book.

The article mentions that Kelly’s mobility issues had increased over the past couple years and she used a scooter. Did that make friends less ready to make time for her, worrying about the accessibility of whatever meeting place they chose for a social gathering? Other people who use mobility devices have written of having limited social circles and one wonders what happened to Kelly’s social supports as her mobility impairments increased.

But, in the framework of this story, no one is encouraged to think along those lines. Kelly’s death is seen as almost inevitable and as a deserved act of compassion toward herself. Kind of like a hot bubble bath at the end of the day. (yes, that’s sarcasm)

In retrospect, it’s not surprising that the Arizona Daily Star would treat Kelly’s death this way. The paper has a lousy track record. It ignored the the 2007 story of the investigation into the death of Janet Van Voorhis (allegedly facilitated by the Final Exit Network) and published a factually inaccurate and self-serving op-ed by Final Exit Network member Earl Wettstein earlier this year. Given this, I won’t predict that the the paper can’t sink any lower – I’m betting it can and very well may in the future, although I hope not.

Interestingly, groups such as the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) have published guidelines for covering suicide deaths, which this article departs from in important ways. But I won’t bother linking to it, since it’s clear that the AFSP doesn’t mean for the media advisory to apply to media coverage of women with disabilities.

It’s Suicide Prevention Week – Except for Old, Ill and Physically Disabled People

assisted suicide, media coverage, Our News & Commentary Blog, reality check, suicide, suicide prevention, Washington state

I’m not sure how many people are aware of this, but we are nearing the end of National Suicide Prevention Week (Sept. 6-12). In fact, today – September 10 – is World Suicide Prevention Day.

For readers of this blog, it might have been easy to miss this important week. After all, there have been some strange acts of “recognition” in the press over the last week.

For example, on Tuesday, September 8, the pro-assisted suicide group Compassion & Choices issued a press release detailing and celebrating the body count under Washington State’s 6-month-old assisted suicide law. Apparently, there hasn’t been a lot of concern that a private political advocacy group now provides more information about implementation of the law than the state does.

In any case, it has meant that the news in Washington State during this Suicide Prevention Week has been dominated by discussion of the “success” of the law enabling the suicides of seriously ill (allegedly terminal) people in that state. Talk of suicide prevention? Practically nil.

In fact, today, World Suicide Prevention Day, The Columbian published an editorial praising the law and what the facts (as presented by Compassion & Choices) indicate to them about its success.

None of this surprises me. I also don’t expect any of the various suicide prevention groups to complain about the inappropriateness of exalting suicide during a week in which they’re trying to promote the value of prevention.

The reason I don’t expect any complaints from suicide prevention organizations is that – to me, at least – they’ve made it pretty clear that they’ve written off the lives of old, ill and physically disabled people as “acceptable losses.” I specify “physically disabled,” because having a label of psychiatric disability too often leads to indefinite terms of forced institutional treatment – with or without a wish to commit suicide. But it’s one thing to have concerns about excesses in the name of “prevention” and another thing to embrace the facilitation of suicides for select groups in the population.

Specifically, there is an appalling lack of voiced concern over the promotion of suicide in the populations of old, ill and physically disabled people. For the first few months of this year, there was nationwide coverage of the Final Exit Network – an organization that supports and facilitates the suicides of people with nonterminal disabilities and chronic conditions. Over the course of many months, stories appearing in countless outlets included the URL for the Final Exit Network in their stories. The website provided information on obtaining suicide instructional materials and how to get involved with the Final Exit Network. Most of the articles treated the Network and its “work” sympathetically.

In case you’re wondering, suicide prevention groups do get involved in media issues. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Suicide and Mental Health Association International both have sections devoted to media issues. Except for a brief mention of suicide increases related to publication of Derek Humphry’s book, Final Exit, there is no acknowledgment that the suicides of old, ill and physically disabled people are being facilitated and then covered in a way that legitimizes them in the press.

So it’s not like these organizations don’t get involved in breaking news or policy issues. Back in March of this year (while coverage of the Final Exit Network was running high), the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention issued a letter blasting Senator Charles Grassley for comments he made suggesting AIG executives should commit suicide, which he soon apologized for. In addition, the organization has actively been involved in the effort to install barriers on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides and issued a statement of concern over the movie “Seven Pounds,” in which the suicide of a young and healthy man was a crucial plot point.

To be fair, the Foundation and other organizations have expressed concerns about high rates of suicide among the elderly, but avoid discussion of the impact of the active promotion of assisted suicide – which has legitimized “fear of being a burden” and “loss of autonomy” as “rational” reasons to commit suicide (if you are old or ill, anyway).

But when it comes to coverage of the Final Exit Network, promotion of assisted suicide, and other issues – these organizations maintain a studied silence. And it’s a silence that speaks volumes to those of us who have been paying attention.

The complete absence of suicide prevention organizations from the public discussions of these issues sends a message: the suicides of the elderly, the ill, and people with disabilities aren’t their concern.

There could be many reasons for that. Perhaps they’re afraid that being critical of suicide promotion for these groups could alienate potential donors. Another possiblity is that there is division within the ranks of these groups – that some influential professionals believe that some lives aren’t worth saving – and that the suicides of old, ill and physically disabled people call for a different kind of response.

That response right now is silence. It may be a silence fueled by simple cowardice and political expediency. Or it could be something worse – that they really have written us off.

No way to know because they’re not talking. And up til now, everyone has been too polite to point out that this is an arena in which their voices belong.

I plan to revisit this topic. These organizations need to know that we are listening and watching.

Have a happy Suicide Prevention Week – for you young, healthy, nondisabled people that seem to be its only focus right now. For the rest of us, it’s just another week. –Stephen Drake