NDY Joins National Alliance to Support Proposed Federal Resolution Opposing Legalization of Assisted Suicide

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[Editor’s note: Today, NDY’s Anita Cameron is among the speaker’s at a press conference announcing the introduction of a bipartisan Sense of Congress Resolution detailing the dangers of a public policy of assisted suicide. NDY’s disability community allies, including ADAPT, DREDF and NCIL, support this Resolution. The National Alliance press release is below.]

For Immediate Release: September 27th, 2017

Contact: Kate Bryan: kbryan@CRCPublicRelations.com or Matille Thebolt mthebolt@CRCPublicRelations.com, 703-683-5004

Patients Rights Action Fund Along With The National Alliance Against Legalizing Assisted Suicide Praise Introduction of Federal Legislation Opposing Legalization of Assisted Suicide

“Many do not realize that people battling terminal illness, people with disabilities and others are inadvertently targeted by the legalization of assisted suicide…This bill takes a big step toward protecting me and so many others from a death-too-soon.”

  • J. Hanson, terminal brain cancer patient and president of Patients Rights Action Fund

Washington, D.C. – Today Patients Rights Action Fund (PRAF), together with a broad-based alliance including Physicians for Compassionate Care, National Council on Independent Living, ADAPT, Not Dead Yet, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and more, AllianceAgainstAssistedSuicide.org, praised United States Congressmen Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), Luis Correa (D-CA), and a group of bipartisan cosponsors for introducing Sense of Congress legislation who reject assisted suicide as public policy.

The resolution details a multitude of reasons why it is a grave mistake to legalize assisted suicide. Ultimately, assisted suicide puts everyone, especially the most vulnerable, at risk for a death-too-soon and undermines the entire purpose of the health care system.

J.J. Hanson, terminal brain cancer patient and president of Patients Rights Action Fund said, “Many do not realize that people battling terminal illness, people with disabilities and others are inadvertently targeted by the legalization of assisted suicide. I am grateful to Congressmen Correa, Vargas, Wenstrup and all of the other cosponsors for introducing a Sense of Congress resolution. This bill brings attention to this important issue and takes a big step toward protecting me and so many others from a death-too-soon.”

This Alliance has brought many people together from across the political and social spectrum including medical professionals, groups that advocate for persons with disabilities, people who experience depression, and the elderly, as well as advocates for people with terminal illness, and others.

Statements from Coalition Partners on Federal Legislation:

Diane Coleman, President/CEO of Not Dead Yet: “As a national, secular, social justice organization, Not Dead Yet strongly supports this bipartisan effort to speak truth to the many myths about legalized assisted suicide. As Americans with disabilities, we are on the front lines of the nation’s health care system that often devalues old, ill, and disabled people. So we are grateful for this Sense of Congress that explains the dangers of mistake, coercion, and abuse under a public policy of assisted suicide.”

Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF): “Where assisted suicide is legal, some people’s lives will be ended without their consent, through mistakes and abuse. No safeguards have ever been enacted or even proposed that can prevent this outcome, which can never be undone. The so-called safeguards are very weak, and the lack of oversight hides these dangers from public view. Moreover, assisted suicide laws are a prescription for elder abuse and abuse of people with disabilities. Supporters of assisted suicide say such laws won’t affect disabled people—but they will, whether or not they realize it. But there is a legal alternative: anyone dying in discomfort may legally receive palliative sedation. Under these circumstances, assisted suicide is not real choice, but a phony form of freedom.“

ADAPT: “Disabled people and seniors who need assistance with everyday tasks like dressing and bathing want the choice to get those services at home and to have control over how they’re delivered. We do not want to be forced into a nursing facility, nor forced to live in poverty to qualify. Unfortunately, that choice is not a reality for most of us. In states that have legalized assisted suicide, Oregon data shows, over a third of those who request assistance to die do so because of “feelings of being a burden” and over 90% cite “loss of autonomy” as a factor. If the only alternative to death is poverty and segregation in nursing facilities, assisted suicide is not a “choice.” Society is failing to ensure access to consumer controlled long-term services. The last thing we need in this time of draconian budget cuts in Medicaid is the legalization of assisted suicide laws, because the untimely deaths of disabled Americans can easily be seen as a cost saving answer.”

Kelly Buckland of National Council on Independent Living: “Our society places a high value on physical appearance and ability, and stigmatizes significant disability. It’s no surprise that those of us who grew up able-bodied and then became disabled might initially see disability as a huge loss of one’s former dreams and physical abilities. When someone is first hit with this, they may feel they’d be better off dead. As one struggles to get basic needs met, some people feel worn down. If assisted suicide had been legal in the past, even if it were supposedly only for those with “terminal” conditions, I might not be here today. I’m grateful that assisted suicide was not legal back then, and I’m committed to keeping it that way. This is an important reason why the National Council on Independent Living opposes assisted suicide laws. NCIL is a leader in the disability rights movement, our political struggle for equal rights. And, among other things, equal rights include equal suicide prevention.”

William F. Toffler, National Director of Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Fund: “Empowering doctors to assist patients in killing themselves has led to an inevitable erosion of trust in the motives of doctors, health care institutions, and insurers.  This has been detrimental to patients, degraded the quality of medical care, and compromised the integrity of medical profession wherever assisted suicide has been legalized. The solution to suffering is not to end the life of the sufferer; rather society’s focus at the end of life should be to alleviate suffering by improving access to hospice and palliative care whenever it is needed.”

Joseph E. Marine, M.D.: “As a physician in practice for over 16 years, I appreciate the great trust that patients and the public place in the medical profession and in American health care institutions. It is one of the reasons that many health care professionals have been working in state capitals across the country to oppose legislation which would legalize assisted suicide. I applaud the efforts of Congressmen Wenstrup, Correa, Abraham, Harris, Vargas and the other cosponsors to increase awareness of the dangers of this practice. Their bipartisan Sense of Congress Resolution clearly states many of the risks and lack of enforceable safeguards in assisted suicide legislation, including lack of witnesses, absence of impartial oversight and routine audits, falsification of death certificates, inadequate psychiatric screening, and poor regulation of the dangerous controlled substances prescribed for purpose of suicide. Assisted suicide laws represent a danger to the integrity of the medical profession and the trust that the public places in health care institutions. I hope that this important House Resolution will attract many co-sponsors and enjoy swift passage through the Congress.”

Laws legalizing assisted suicide have been passed in five states and the District of Columbia. In Montana, because of a court ruling, if doctors are prosecuted, they can use the patient’s request as a potentially viable defense in court. Twenty-three other states have rejected bills attempting to legalize assisted suicide since the beginning of 2017.

***

The mission of the Patients Rights Action Fund (PRAF) is to protect the rights of patients, people with disabilities, and others inadvertently targeted by legalizing assisted suicide. PRAF is the national coordinated movement to promote measures that protect patients’ civil rights, to weaken the breadth and effectiveness of pro-assisted suicide laws and rulings, to work toward repeal of the same, and to oppose efforts to make suicide a legal medical treatment option.

The National Alliance Against Assisted Suicide shares this mission in general and collectively supports this specific legislation and no other at this time.

National ADAPT Saves Our Lives and Liberty AGAIN!

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Deja Vu. The last time Congress proposed to decimate Medicaid and insurance protections, National ADAPT came to the rescue. We linked to some of the impressive coverage in this blog.

Now they’ve done it again, saved the lives and liberty of millions – again! One tweet said, “In 2017, the cavalry doesn’t ride on horses. It rides on wheelchairs.”

Here are a few links to coverage of yesterday’s efforts.

Hundreds Protest GOP Health Bill Outside Hearing

Chaos erupted at a Senate hearing on the GOP healthcare bill as protesters were dragged out and arrested

Nearly 200 Protesters Arrested Demonstrating Against GOP Health Care Bill

Trumpcare Is Dead. Long Live the Trumpcare Opposition.

Today, ADAPT is at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protesting the torture of people with disabilities at the infamous Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts, and demanding that HHS make our Supreme Court affirmed civil right to in-home long term care services more than words on a page, but a reality of liberty and justice for all.

For more, go to National ADAPT and #ADAPTandRESIST.

DREDF Statement on Hollywood Hills Tragedy: In Emergency Planning, Disabled People Are Too Often Left Behind

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As the southern half of the United States begins repairing the damage caused by Hurricane Irma, news reports surfaced that residents of a Hollywood Hills assisted living facility called The Rehabilitation Center were inside the center without air conditioning. Eight people died even though there was a hospital across the street, just mere yards from the nursing home.

“Most of the patients have been treated for respiratory distress, dehydration and heat-related issues,” Dr. Randy Katz, the medical director of Memorial Regional’s emergency department, said at a press conference. At this time, the exact cause of death of the six individuals are not yet known.

What do we know?

  • All eight deaths are under “criminal investigation.”
  • The owner of Hollywood nursing home where the individuals died has a history of fraud charges.
  • The manager of the facility was accused in 2004 of federal and state health care fraud, according to the Department of Justice. He and three others settled the case.
  • The Hollywoods Hills Rehab facility is directly across the street from Memorial Regional Hospital. 115 people were transferred to the hospital. Not all of their conditions were known but a number of the evacuated patients were reportedly in respiratory distress.
  • Three people died while still at the nursing home. Five others were in such bad shape that they died even after being moved across the street to Memorial hospital.

As of September 13, at least 15 people have died in Florida including the residents of Hollywood Hills in Irma-related circumstances, many of them after the storm had passed. Elsewhere, Irma was responsible for four deaths in South Carolina and two in Georgia. At least 37 individuals died because of the storm in the Caribbean.

And yet, to paraphrase the New York Times, three days after Hurricane Irma howled through South Florida, eight of the residents of Hollywood Hills were dead, not because of heavy winds, or the result of a flood, but because they lacked air–conditioning.

The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund mourns the deaths of everyone who has suffered and died because of Hurricane’s Harvey and Irma, and this sorrow is deepened by any instance where negligence was clearly a factor.

Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005—where we know at least 215 corpses of senior citizens, hospital patients, and disabled individuals were found in nursing homes and hospitals throughout New Orleans—the disproportionate impact of disasters on people with disabilities was, for a moment, big news.

Have we not learned anything in 12 years?

If officials knew that the generators would not power the air conditioners, why weren’t the residents of Hollywood Hills moved to the hospital sooner? The possibility that officials may not have known the limits or capacity of back–up power sources is even more disturbing. Either possibility suggests neglect. Both situations could have almost certainly been planned for and prevented.

Individuals with physical disabilities are at increased risk if mobility assistance is not provided, or planned for, during disasters. Individuals with cognitive impairments may struggle with public safety instructions when disaster occurs. People who are blind, Deaf, etc. may have difficulty communicating during the emergency – especially when sign language interpretation is lacking or inadequate. All of these factors persist and they compound and increase the degree of risk in disaster situations for people with disabilities.

Despite the necessary work of groups like Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies, and the Trach Mommas of Louisiana who remain on the front lines of disaster relief, evidence suggests that the continued lack of disability-related training provided to and offered by emergency planners and disaster relief personnel remains a disturbing, ever-pressing concern.

Hurricane Irma, the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Atlantic, ranked at the maximum Category 5. And experts predict we haven’t seen the last of it. Forecasts suggest that the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season will be “above–normal,” with 14 to 19 named storms occuring before peak season. For now, Hurricane Jose has spared the Caribbean, but this could change as something as simple and unpredictable as a change in direction.

Warmer temperatures, which exacerbate both the incidence and severity of forest fires, deeper and more dangerous floodwaters, and hurricanes like Irma ratcheting up unprecidented wind speeds of 185MPH, have competed for headlines at the same time policymakers debate budget cuts making disability a political issue outside of traditional access and civil rights concerns. Mother Nature may not discriminate but when it comes to emergency planning, public policy certainly does. This is, by any objective measure—you guessed it—a recipe for disaster.

Disability rights organizations must remain diligent in pressing local, state, and federal authorities to include, and provide for, the needs of disabled people in disaster planning and implementation. As the tragedy of Hollywood Hills illustrates, when the needs of disabled people are ignored, or worse yet – blatantly denied, everyone loses. These concerns are even more pressing when one considers that the Trump administration is seeking to strip nursing home residents and their families of the right to take facilities to court over alleged abuse, neglect or sexual assault.

Policymakers and elected officials should be learning the lessons that disasters like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma provide. Let’s make sure that in addition to the usual lip service we hear from decision-makers in the aftermath of disaster-related tragedies, that the policies they enact, enforce and fund center the needs of disabled constituents – so that we do not get left behind yet again.

[The above Statement was issued by DREDF here.]

Disability Rights Groups Applaud NY Court of Appeals Assisted Suicide Ruling

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Not Dead Yet, the Resistance

Contacts:

Diane Coleman 708-420-0539 dcoleman@notdeadyet.org
Adam Prizio 518-320-7100 (office) 603-518-4910 (cell) aprizio@cdrnys.org 

For Immediate Release:
Disability rights groups applaud today’s New York Court of Appeals unanimous ruling announcing that “we reject plaintiffs’ argument that an individual has a fundamental constitutional right to aid-in-dying . . . . We also reject plaintiffs’ assertion that the State’s prohibition on assisted suicide is not rationally related to legitimate state interests.”

Not Dead Yet led the filing of a Disability Rights friend-of-the-court brief in the state’s highest court in support of the New York State Attorney General. Joining in the Not Dead Yet brief were ten other national and New York state disability rights organizations: ADAPT, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the Center for Disability Rights, the Disability Rights Center, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF), the National Council on Independent Living, the New York Association on Independent Living, Regional Center for Independent Living and United Spinal Association, collectively referred to as the “Disability Rights Amici.”

“We are tremendously heartened by today’s decision,” said Adam Prizio, attorney for the Disability Rights Amici. “This was the right decision for the Court of Appeals and for the disability community, because the Petitioners were asking the Court to write into law an exception which the Legislature did not create and did not intend. The Court rightly declined to do this. I expect proponents of assisted suicide to redouble their efforts with the Legislature as a result, and to try to push assisted suicide through in a hurry next year. We will be there to push back when they do, because this issue is life and death for the disability community.”

Among other issues, the brief expressed concerns about advocacy for assisted suicide in the context of extreme pressures to cut health care costs. “Elders and people with disabilities too often face economic or other pressures to get out of the way,” said Diane Coleman, president/CEO of Not Dead Yet. “If assisted suicide becomes an accepted practice, coverage may be denied for more expensive healthcare, as we’ve already seen in Oregon and California. In this climate, what is being promoted as a ‘right to die’ could very quickly become an expectation, even a duty to die.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Fahey quoted from the Disability Rights brief:

The Disability Rights amici argue that while the plaintiffs “use the term ‘dignified death’ to justify assisted suicide. . . .  the ‘indignities’ nondisabled (and some newly disabled) people invariably describe are the need for assistance in daily activities like bathing, dressing, and other realities of having a disability.  Legalizing assisted suicide enshrines in law the prejudice that death is preferable to receiving the assistance that many disabled people rely on” (Amicus Brief of Disability Rights Amici: Not Dead Yet et al., at 4).  . . .  Legalizing physician-assisted suicide would convey a societal value judgment that such “indignities” as physical vulnerability and dependence mean that life no longer has any intrinsic value.

A disability does not deprive life of integrity or value.  There is no lack of nobility or true dignity in being dependent on others.

Statement of Solidarity in Observance of Suicide Prevention Month

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Affirming the Importance to People with Disabilities of Access to Services, Real Choices, and Self-Determination
September is suicide prevention month, and during its observance, we express our sincere sorrow that any human ever experiences a level of despair or hopelessness that results in a choice to end one’s own life.
The concern of the disability, military and veterans, and aging communities in suicide prevention is understandable in view of research regarding rates and reasons, which consistently show these groups at increased risk. According to several studies, the biggest difference between notes of those who died as a result of suicide attempts and those who attempted it but survived was a far greater emphasis in the notes of those who died as a result of their attempts on the belief that they were a burden on other people and society at large.[1] Research also shows that isolation or removal of a person from his or her social group creates increased risk for suicide, and that people experiencing depression – a psychiatric disability – have a risk factor 25 times greater than that of the general population.[2]
As a community of more than 58 million Americans with disabilities of all races, ethnicities, ages, sexual orientations, and genders/gender identities  — including veterans with disabilities and the aging community with acquired disabilities – we have a long history of receiving messages from society that we are a burden on account of our health care needs; our difficulty transitioning back into society; or faulty assumptions about the quality of our lives. Far from harmless opinion, these views – often tantamount to “better dead than disabled” – are an insidious threat to our civil rights and to decisions about allocations of public funds.
As long as the majority of Americans with disabilities continue to live in poverty and unnecessary isolation, without access to appropriate mental health care and comprehensive, fully-funded and operational systems of assistive living services, our alarming and distressing rates of suicide, including assisted suicide, will go unchecked. We find this unacceptable, and in recognition of the 27th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), we echo the words of the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency, when it wrote, “Society should not be ready to give up on the lives of its citizens with disabilities until it has made real and persistent efforts to give these citizens a fair and equal chance to achieve a meaningful life.”[3]
Underpinning and enshrined within major American disability civil rights laws is the belief that “disability is a natural part of the human experience.”[4] The immutability of disability forms the basis of the protections these laws confer, and yet, laws alone, absent abiding commitments from all quarters of society, cannot create the type of societal change that together we are fighting to achieve.
We on this occasion of observing Suicide Prevention Month:
  • Recognize that people with disabilities, including veterans with disabilities and the aging population, are among society’s most likely to end their lives and to experience pressure to end their lives.
  • Recognize that other factors such as race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity/expression may further compound on and contribute to risk factors relating to suicide.
  • Affirm the statement in Article 10 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which states that “every human being has the inherent right to life” and pledge to work together to “ensure its effective enjoyment by persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others.”
  • Believe disability is a natural part of the human experience and a form of human diversity, and we reject the notion that disability is a fate worse than death.
  • Believe dignity is innate in every life and eschew the notion that dignity can only be achieved or reclaimed by extinguishing life.
We encourage leaders from across the country to join us in calling out and rejecting policies and practices that exclude, isolate, and discriminate against people with disabilities that so often encourage self-inflicted or assisted premature deaths; and instead, work together toward the full participation and self-determination of all people with disabilities as equally-valued members of our beautiful and diverse human family.

Not Dead Yet

ADAPT of Texas
American Association of People with Disabilities
Associated Students Inc.
Association of Disabled Women ONE.pl
Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
BNICEH
#CripTheVote
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF)
Disability Rights International
Ehlers-Danlos Network Australasia
FilmDis
Green Think Tank for the Disability Community
IMPRUVE
#LiveOnProject
National Council on Independent Living
National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities
New York Association on Independent Living
NMD United Inc.
Not Dead Yet Montana
Ohio ADAPT
Parent to Parent USA
Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies
Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies
Potter County Yellow Ribbon
Road to Freedom Bus Tour
Sibling Leadership Network
United Spinal Association
Zach Baldwin
Gregg Beratan
Janine Bertram
Fallon Binns
Jennifer Border
AaronBrannen
Kathy Brill
Allison Butler
Carolyn Clark
Diane Coleman
Kelvin Chung
Roger Deason
Kathleen Downes
Sarah Dresser
Robin Eames
Eddie Ellis
Horacio Esparza
Dominick Evans
Heather Gautier
Carol Gilster
Tom Gratis-Roh
Irina Greenman
Jason Harris
Tania Harris
Cy Harvey
Linda Hughes
Brittany Hepler
Marsha Katz
Angela Kennedy
Christiana Koch
Rayna Lamb
Jean-Marie Lawrence
Quin Lawrence
Selina Lee
John Leete
Cara Liebowitz
Andrew Little
Ama Love
Ayo Maat
Larissa MacFarlane
Karen McCulloh
Shonda McLaughlin
Barb Mead
Sheila Northrop
Lydia Nunez Landry
Kayla Olden
Tom Olin
Jennifer Pickner
Rebecca Raphael
Joanna Rennix
Marcie Roth
Kendra Scalia
Mik Scarlet
Dawn Schelthelm
Tracey Steele-John
Paul Timmons
Claire Vinten
Mike Volkman
Kristin Walters
Liz Weaver
Andrea Winters
Emily Wolinsky

[1] Joiner, T. E., Pettit, J. W., Walker, R. L., Voelz, Z. R., Cruz, J., Rudd, M. D., & Lester, D. (2002). Perceived burdensomeness and suicidality: Two studies on the suicide notes of those attempting and those completing suicide. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 21(5), 531-545.

[2] W. Breitbart, “Cancer Pain and Suicide,” in Advances in Pain Research and Therapy, ed. K. M. Foley et al., vol (New York: Raven Press, 1990), 399-412.

[3] National Council on Disability, “Assisted Suicide: A Disability Perspective Position Paper” (1997).

[4] As expressed in the congressional findings of the U.S. Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, 42 U.S.C.A. §15001 (2000), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C.A. §1400, and the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §701.