Some years ago, I wrote why Black folks should join the movement against physician assisted suicide. I spoke of racial disparities in healthcare, the tendency for us to be poor and our lives devalued and the efforts of Compassion and Choices to convince us that we’re being deprived of a basic right. I spoke about […]
Separating myth and reality in aid in dying January 20, 2021 The virus is surging and the death rate is increasing as the already overburdened health system is in crisis. Yet, there is talk of the legislature again considering a bill to permit doctors to provide lethal prescriptions to terminally ill adults requesting them. This […]
The Greenfield Recorder published John Kelly’s letter opposing the Massachusetts assisted suicide bill on August 12. This excellent letter speaks for itself. Older, ill and disabled people deserve choice-promoting services, supports By JOHN B. KELLY I disagree with Joan Milnes’s call for passage of the assisted suicide bill now in the legislature (“Making a final choice […]
Disability rights activists are working to oppose Maryland’s assisted suicide bill, SB 701, on several fronts. They are active participants in the broad spectrum coalition called Maryland Against Physician Assisted Suicide. The coalition has been preparing for the first hearing on the bill, scheduled for Friday, February 28 beginning at 12:00 noon. On February 17, […]
Published in today’s Union Leader — Your Turn, NH – Mike Reynolds: FOR OVER two decades the independent people of New Hampshire have been solidly against assisted suicide. Since 1996, the New Hampshire legislature has studied or voted down this proposed law so many times it takes two hands to count them all. Assisted suicide […]
Press Release Contacts: John Kelly 617-952-3302; Anita Cameron 585-259-8746 (Manchester, NH) – Not Dead Yet’s director of minority outreach, Anita Cameron, will join disability rights leaders from the Brain Injury Association of New Hampshire, ABLE New Hampshire, Disability Rights Center and other state and local groups to oppose a New Hampshire assisted suicide bill, HB […]
Patients Rights Action Fund shared the following press advisory sent as disability advocates show up to oppose Evanston City Council assisted suicide resolution: Tonight, the Evanston City Council will debate and vote on the issue of assisted suicide. Below are statements from disability rights advocates who oppose assisted suicide if you are planning to cover […]
They say that “all politics are local.” While bills to legalize assisted suicide are a state issue, proponents of these dangerous bills are engaging in local politics as well. An example is the Evanston City Council in Illinois. This is the home district of the lead sponsor in the state legislature. Last Thursday, the local […]
I just came across a brilliant letter that John Kelly sent to the Washington, D.C. Council when they were considering an assisted suicide bill in 2016. I should have posted it here then, but I am doing so now (lightly edited), because it’s one of the best discussions I’ve read of the core problem that […]
Dr. Ira Byock, a specialist in palliative care, a progressive Democrat and an opponent of assisted suicide laws has stated, “When doctor-induced death becomes an accepted response to the suffering of dying people, logical extensions grease the slippery slope.” (1) Supporters of such laws have written, “It is reasonable to proceed incrementally…Thus, the restriction of […]
