Two Disability Advocates Respond to Two Assisted Suicide Proponents with Disabilities

On July 25, 2014, two individuals with disabilities had an op ed published in a Montana newspaper, the Missoulian, that called for a strong response from disability rights advocates, which came in the form of two great letters published in the same paper.

On August 7^th, a letter by a disability advocate and former wheelchair racing athlete Lucinda Hardy appeared:

Dear Editor:

I have read the guest column,”People living with disabilities support death with dignity” (July 25), which advocates for legalizing assisted suicide and/or euthanasia for the disabled. I could be described as such a person and this opinion does not speak for me. I am strongly against legalizing these practices. 

When I was in high school, I was on track to get a basketball scholarship to college. And then, I was in a car accident. The accident left me in a wheelchair, a quadriplegic. In addition to my paralysis, I had other difficulties. Over the next two or three years, I gave serious thought to suicide. And I had the means to do it, but both times I got close, I stopped myself. 

If instead, my doctor, an authority figure, had told me that ending my life was a rational course, there might have been a different result. If instead, he had given me a lethal dose to ingest or offered to euthanize me, I might have gone along with it. But assisted suicide and euthanasia were not legal in Montana. Such courses were off the table.

So, instead, I went to college to seek a degree in education. While in college, I participated in wheelchair racing at the state, national and international levels. I met my husband and 21 years later the honeymoon is not over. We have three beautiful daughters and a new baby granddaughter. I am also active in my community.

Montana’s law protected me and I hope it will stay in place to continue to protect me and others as we go through the sometimes hard times of life.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia should not be legal.

Lucinda Hardy, Columbia Falls

And on August 4th, the paper also carried the following letter by long time ADAPT and NDY activist Marsha Katz:

While two disabled people have shared personal opinions in favor of legalizing assisted suicide (“People living with disabilities support death with dignity” July 25), readers need to know that all of the major national disability organizations that have taken a position on the issue oppose legalizing assisted suicide.

This includes the National Council on Disability, the National Council on Independent Living, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and several others (see notdeadyet.org/disability-groups-opposed-to-assisted-suicide-laws). These organizations view public policy with a deep historical knowledge of how old, ill and disabled people are devalued by society and, too often, even by our own families. They also have practical experience with our health care and service systems.

The so-called “safeguards” in assisted suicide laws are hollow. For instance, one of the two required witnesses to the form requesting assisted suicide can be an heir who might stand to gain by the person’s death. And worse, neither witness to the person’s signature is required to actually know the person. There is no way to discover, much less prevent, any form of coercion or caregiver abuse in getting people to sign assisted suicide requests. And since no independent witness is required at the time of death, self-administration of the lethal dose is not assured, even though it is required by law. In Oregon, the law includes no investigation or enforcement provisions. Safeguards? I don’t think so.

A major reason people request assisted suicide is the feeling they are a burden to others. I see that as a subtle form of coercion, often resulting from the lack of necessary home care services, or proper pain management and palliative care.

Why are people advocating our “death with dignity” before working first to assure that we have life with dignity?

Marsha Katz, Missoula

The op-ed also made a number of claims, some unsubstantiated, some inaccurate.  In the inaccurate category, two should be mentioned and corrected.  Despite their disabilities, the authors didn’t discern the error in their recap of findings reported in the Journal of Medical Ethics:

A report published in the Journal of Medical Ethics about the Oregon Death With Dignity Act concluded: “Rates of assisted dying in Oregon showed no evidence of heightened risk for … the physically disabled or chronically ill.”

The problem with this statement is that the Oregon assisted suicide reports tell us that the reasons people ask for assisted suicide are loss of autonomy (93%), loss of ability to engage in enjoyable activities (89%) and feelings of being a burden on family, friends/caregivers (49%), all indications of physical impairment and the need for physical assistance in basic daily activities.  In fact, it looks like the vast majority of the Oregon assisted suicides involved people with physical disabilities, whether the cause was life long, chronic or recent.

The authors also stated that, “Since Oregon’s law went into effect in 1997, four other U.S. states have allowed the medical practice of aid in dying: Washington, Montana, Vermont and New Mexico.”  That really overstates the case in Montana and New Mexico.  The Montana Supreme Court ruled that a physician may raise the defense of the victim’s consent to assisted suicide if he or she is charged with homicide in the death of a patient.  This is far from legalizing the practice and does not guarantee that the defense would be successful, which would depend on the facts of the case.  In New Mexico, the ruling was at the district court level, affecting only part of the state, and is under appeal by the state Attorney General.

Later this week, we’ll post an article by NDY’s New England Regional Director John Kelly responding to the same op-ed and giving a shout out to the role of disability activists in defeating assisted suicide legislation in the Northeast.  In fact, maybe those real successes are the main reason for the op ed, a transparent effort at redirection.