NDY Activist Mike Reynolds Testifies Against Maine Assisted Suicide Bills

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Long time NDY activist Mike Reynolds provided strong and effective testimony against assisted suicide bills in Maine, and attended the key committee work session held on April 19th. Here are his comments addressing Senator Brakey and Representative Hymanson:

My name is Michael Reynolds, I live in Lewiston, ME and strongly urge you to vote to oppose LD 347 and 1066, both laws that would permit assisted suicide in this state. As a disabled activist who has worked on this issue on state, national and (strangely) even internationally, this law with it’s sugarcoated title “Death with Dignity,” has been defeated eight times previously in this state, and is only before you today due to a non-profit . . . funded by out of state money, using a flawed law that has been disastrous in Oregon, with zero oversight if a doctor doesn’t use safeguards in the bill. In fact, why have safeguards if Doctors and the providers are given blanket immunity, and a teenager in our state would face greater penalties possessing Cannabis than a licensed medical doctor would with a botched assisted suicide.

And “Terminally ill” certainly has an interesting definition in LD 347, one that states that a person qualifies for a terminal prescription if the condition is “an incurable and irreversible disease that will, within reasonable medical judgment, result in death in six months.” There is no mention of whether the condition can be controlled by medication, nor any exclusion for an individual whose condition can be controlled by medication. People who have epilepsy, . . . or even have diabetes could be theoretically allowed to die under the proposed language in LD 347. Additionally, in the [Oregon state Death With Dignity Act] report . . . diabetes was given as an underlying terminal condition that, in Oregon, made the patient eligible for a lethal prescription. These two laws undermine the basic values of community and inclusion in our state.

In 2016, Oregon Public Health Division, “Oregon Death with Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary,” a state publication that provides detailed analysis of how the state’s law is used year to year, published that less than 4% of patients who received a lethal dose of medication were referred to a psychological evaluation, making the risks of allowing someone with uncontrolled mental illness or depression are not only potential fears, they are actual realities in states where “choice” for “terminally ill” individuals have been law for twenty years. Additionally since 2000, the suicide rate for Oregon is 41 percent above the national average, according to Oregon Health Department. (1) In 2013, Portland, OR suicides were three times the national average, according to information reported by the Oregonian.(2)

Our state has one of the best Hospice networks in the nation. Maine people have fought to give access to much needed palliative care and therapy [through] . . . Maine Hospice providers, including the use of Medical Cannabis in Hospice facilities. The Maine Medical Cannabis program has helped an untold number of thousands of Maine individuals, from children to adults, receive locally grown, safely grown and regulated medical marijuana from nearly two thousand caregivers or eight dispensaries. Maine has the highest rated medical marijuana program in the country according to Americans for Safe Access, a pro-cannabis national nonprofit.

Interestingly, the people who are pushing for passage of this law point to control and compassion as reasons to support this law, yet the reality is much more complex than that. Under both proposed laws, as soon as the prescription is filled, the law is remarkably silent about the administration of the lethal medication. There is no exception for a pharmacist who may feel uncomfortable filling a lethal prescription for ethical or religious convictions. For anyone who thinks this will be simply taking a few pills and drifting off to sleep, that’s not how the process works. According to the Oregon Public Health Division . . . Secobarbital [is] the default drug to “die with dignity.” The therapeutic dosage of Secobarbital is 100 to 200 mg or one to two capsules taken orally. When a patient is given a lethal prescription of Secobarbital they are given 90-100 capsules, told to empty the contents of the capsule in a sweet tasting liquid, like ginger ale and then, drink the liquid. . . . [T]he lethal dose of Secobarbital can cost anywhere from 1,500 to 2,300 dollars. The cocktail can take anywhere from 2 hours to four and a half days to kill a patient (3), the drug does not always work; people have had to be revived after vomiting the solution.

Finally given the past few weeks in which people have been concerned about their health care and with real issues affecting access to health care, and even critical treatments such as organ transplants becoming a political issue, now is not the time for this law.

1.https://dredf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/A-Deadly-Model-Suicide-Contagion.pdf

2.http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/09/portland_suicides_almost_three.html

3.http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/742070_3

Live On: Disabled Lives are Worth Living!!

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From the Center for Disability Rights’ Director of Advocacy, Stephanie Woodward:

The Live On Movement is a disability-led project for people with disabilities to see how worthwhile life is. Life can be hard sometimes, and this is even more true for people living with disabilities. Young people with disabilities face bullying, youth and adults with disabilities can be forced into nursing facilities, and plenty of people and businesses still discriminate against us every day. Whether you were born with your disability, your disability has slowly progressed as you grew older, or you suddenly acquired your disability, the challenges you face are real. But you can get through them!

Some people do not think they can get through the challenges they face, and some people may think there’s no way to live a happy, fulfilling life with a disability, but we know that’s not true. The Live On Movement was created to show people with disabilities the incredible lives they can lead, and all they need to do right now is choose to Live On.

The mission of the Live On Movement is to show disabled people everywhere that life is worth living and to connect people with the resources they need to Live On.

From CDR’s press release:

Live On is an online campaign aimed at encouraging people with newly acquired disabilities, progressive disabilities, or young disabled people who might be more susceptible to bullying and suicidal ideation, to consider the value of their life as a disabled person. Many times, people in these situations receive strong messages from society that their life is not worth living. Since disabled people often lack disabled role models who are flourishing in the same situation as theirs, it is easy to accept these negative messages. This project is aimed at reversing that narrative through a series of short, but powerful videos that highlight the experiences of people who may have struggled to accept their disability at first, but have now built a life worth living with their disability and not just in spite of it.

In addition to the videos telling the stories of disabled lives well lived, Live On offers a variety of resources for disabled people who may be struggling with depression and/or suicidal thoughts. This includes information like how to contact the Crisis Text Line and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Resources are also available for contacting the hundreds of Centers for Independent Living that are scattered across the United States, offering expert knowledge and first-hand experience in living with a disability as a fully integrated member of society. 

Individuals with disabilities who want to share their stories can contribute to this ongoing project with a video or a blog, submitted at www.liveon.net. Further, suicide prevention organizations looking to better serve people with disabilities can contact us for consultation and training.

“There is no doubt that Live On has the potential to save lives,” says Dominick Evans, a Project Coordinator for the Live On campaign. “This is the first project of its kind in the United States to directly speak to disabled people who have been placed at the margins of society and told that their lives don’t matter.”

Live On Home

Anita Cameron: Physician Assisted Suicide Removes Choice

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Often, the first charge of proponents of physician assisted suicide (PAS) to those of us who are against it is “you are taking away my choice to die when I want to by fighting against assisted suicide legislation”.

Try as I may, I simply cannot understand that view. How am I taking away their choice? Aren’t there choices of when and how to die without physician assisted suicide? Does assisted suicide offer real choice to its proponents?

Currently, and contrary to popular misconception, suicide is not illegal in the United States. If someone is sick and in great pain, they can choose to end their life in a number of ways, including stopping treatment, stopping nutrition and water, or taking an overdose of pain pills that are already available. For a terminally ill person, hospice stands ready to make the first two approaches painless and peaceful.

The “choice”, loosely speaking, that proponents are talking about is to be able to ask their doctor for life-ending medications and if their own doctor says no, the ability to doctor shop until they find a doctor who will agree to their request.

Unfortunately, physician assisted suicide offers no actual choices. PAS removes choice by opening the way for insurance companies to deny payment for lifesaving or life-extending treatments and medications, but state that they are willing to pay for the suicide cocktail or drug instead. This has already happened in Oregon and California. Insurance companies are concerned about their bottom line; chemotherapy and other life-saving or extending drugs and treatments cost thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, while the cost of suicide drugs is much cheaper and co-pays are sometimes as low as $1.20. With Congress set on doing away with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and replacing it with the American Health Care Act (AHCA), insurance companies will be even more emboldened to take away people’s choice in health care.

If proponents took the time to think beyond their personal experiences as typically more privileged members of society, they would also see that what they view as choice is actually giving a doctor permission to devalue the lives of people with disabilities and communities of color, two groups who get notoriously inferior health care from the medical profession.

As someone whose mother was erroneously determined to be terminally ill and whose father was denied essential treatments and surgeries because doctors determined that he had “no quality of life” due to his disability, I am sympathetic to people wanting to have the choice to take matters into their own hands when that time comes for them. The thing is, that choice is already available. Physician assisted suicide is not that choice. There is no good in such legislation, only harm.

Marilyn Golden’s Testimony Against Alaska Assisted Suicide Bill H 54

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[Editor’s note: As most of our readers know, NDY works closely with the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund in opposing assisted suicide legislation. A Committee hearing was held last week – April 6 – in Alaska, which allows witnesses to testify by teleconference. Below is Marilyn Golden’s clearly articulated and compelling testimony. BTW, she has also developed one of the best organized, most thorough and accessible compilations of resources on the issue that I’m aware of.]

I am Marilyn Golden, Senior Policy Analyst with the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund—speaking in opposition.

Introduction to social justice basis for opposition

The proponents of H 54 it under the banner of choice.

But choice is a myth in the context of our unjust health care reality. End-of-life treatment options are already limited for thousands of people—constrained by poverty, disability discrimination, or other obstacles. Adding this so-called “choice” into our dysfunctional healthcare system will push people into cheaper lethal options.

H 54 protects doctors and hospitals, not patients. It presumes that all families are happy, and that everyone is financially secure and has no one who wants to harm them.

The bill assumes a fantasy world where government will effectively address abuse, under a bill with no provision for doing so.

Elder and disability abuse

H 54 is a recipe for elder abuse (& disability abuse). An heir (someone who stands to inherit from the ill person) or an abusive caregiver can steer someone towards it, witness their request, pick up their lethal dose for them, and even, in the end, give the drug—because no objective witness is required at the death, so who would know?

The Oregon model is rife with problems

The Oregon model, on which this bill is based, is rife with problems. There is evidence that, in Oregon and in Washington State under virtually identical legislation to this bill:

  • Doctor-shopping has gotten around all safeguards
  • People with acute depression got access to lethal drugs
  • People have lost their lives due solely or partially to economic pressure and even criminal abuse.
  • Deaths have occurred by means other that the patient ingesting the deadly drugs themselves, with no legal consequences, notwithstanding what’s required.
  • Medical complications from the lethal drugs used, have added to any miseries already present for terminally ill patients.
  • Doctors have urged lethal drugs on sick patients who did not ask for them.

Hollow safeguards and neglectful oversight

And it’s not difficult to show that, under the Oregon model mimicked by this bill, that:

  • Misdiagnosis and incorrect prognosis, common in medicine, can end lives prematurely
  • People with limited means can use the law to die quicker, in order to save their families money—is that why its supporters would vote for it? Because nothing can prevent that outcome
  • Also that negligent medical personnel are explicitly free of any liability for their negligent actions
  • People with intellectual and communication disabilities, and with dementia, are at particular risk
  • Abuse is not investigated; there isn’t even a way to report it. Thus, it’s not what the Oregon data shows – it’s what it fails to show. The data shows no abuse because the system is set up not to find it.

Suicide contagion

An additional problem is suicide contagion, a very real phenomenon in society. In Oregon, government reports—not from the department providing weak oversight of assisted suicide, but a very pro-active agency that tries to prevent suicides in general—reports that Oregon’s suicide rate is 41% above the national average, and that all the growth happened since 2000, which is just after assisted suicide became legal.

Is this suspicious association a coincidence? What my organization hears from people with psychiatric disabilities says otherwise. Individuals who struggle with suicidal feelings tell us that legalizing assisted suicide is like society sending a green light that committing suicide is OK. It encourages it.

One such person sent an anonymous letter to legislators in another state, opposing a similar bill, saying “the life you save, could be my own.”

Far more proposals defeated than passed

All this is why seven U.S. states so far this year have rejected the same bill, including New Mexico, Maryland, and Indiana; and why, overall, about 29 states have similarly said no.

H 54 is bad medicine for Alaska. In the name of social justice, please defeat it. Thank you.

Australia: Liz Carr Singing and Talking Against Assisted Suicide

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Anyone who reads this blog or follows the international euthanasia/assisted debate should be familiar with Liz Carr – whose website describes her as an actor, comedian, presenter, and activist. The list is too short – she’s also a documentary film maker and a playwright. She’s in Australia right now, with her musical “Assisted Suicide – The Musical.”

While in Australia, she’s doing her best to promote the perspective of disabled people like herself who oppose legalized assisted suicide for nonreligious reasons. Below is a close-captioned video of Liz speaking to the Victoria Parliament on March 22nd, 2017. It is over 30 minutes long and worth listening to each and every minute. She doesn’t waste a word.

Liz is also hitting the media – talking about her musical and the underrepresented disability perspective on assisted suicide and euthanasia. The following is a clip from an Australian morning news show. The closed captioning on this video is of a lower quality than in the previous one, but should allow readers to follow – if you can read really fast.