For several months, I have been actively involved in the fight for healthcare, resisting the watering down of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and pushing for FDA regulations against the shock torture of people with disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center.
From Washington, DC, to Columbus, Ohio, to Chicago, Illinois and back to Washington, DC, I have protested and gotten arrested fighting for the lives and civil rights of disabled people.
Some may wonder what this has to do with the fight against doctor-assisted suicide. It has everything to do with it!
Cuts to Medicaid and its services means that people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, as well as seniors, will lose access to medications, supports and services and general healthcare. It also means that if someone is diagnosed with a terminal condition in a state where doctor assisted suicide is legal, that person will be even more vulnerable to persuasion or coercion by doctors, family members or caregivers to request the suicide medication due to financial burden.
Our healthcare system is broken and insurance companies are focused on their bottom lines. Insurance companies in Oregon and California have already denied paying for cancer treatment for some patients, offering the suicide cocktail as an option. This is happening to people with some resources; those who lose their Medicaid will have no access to lifesaving treatment, putting them at risk of being pushed into assisted suicide.
The fight to prevent the gutting of the ADA is also important in the fight against doctor assisted suicide because the lack of access to public spaces by people with disabilities can cause anger and depression and contribute to feelings of worthlessness. Many doctor’s offices and equipment are still inaccessible to patients who use wheelchairs or have limited mobility. The ADA also establishes our civil right to home care instead of being forced into institutions. And, as NDY has long argued, the ADA means that old, ill and disabled people deserve the same suicide prevention as everybody else, not a streamlined path to death.
Most doctors’ attitudes towards disabled people are telling–it’s all about a cure or correcting a problem. Many doctors are quick to devalue our lives, so if a patient is then diagnosed with a terminal condition it would be nothing for them to agree to, or even suggest assisted suicide in states where it is legal.
For me, the fight for healthcare and the ADA, and the fight against torture, are on par with the fight against doctor assisted suicide because the gutting of the former and the tolerance of the latter will lead to an increase in the number of people who will fall into its deadly trap.
I’ll send this to my Senators and my Representative.
The courage of Anita Cameron, Diane Coleman and John Kelly and the others who fight for the right to live and the right to health care for the disabled and the elderly and the poor is rewarded when states vote against Physician Assisted Suicide and vote for access to health care for all of their citizens.
However, as a very old woman, the one thing that I do understand is that it is somehow “always about the money.” Unfortunately, now that Health Care and related activities account for almost 20% of the GNP, it appears that we will never have universal health care in the United States and that profits will be protected before patients. ,
We will have a drug-store system that will appear to reduce some of the costs of drugs as more citizens will be prescribed drugs which’will be good for the drug stores, Walgreen’s and CVS etc., who will compete with each other to get exclusive custody of customers with good insurance. The Big Pharmaceutical companies will realize even greater profits as drugstore clinics replace the family physicians.
The disabled and the elderly and the poor will have to fight hard to live as long as they want to live and as long as is medically possible as PAS and Medicare and Medicaid Law are changing to accommodate the growing profit-making Medical Industrial Complex.
When HOSPICE is no longer an option, and becomes the only option for care under Medicare and Medicaid law, the murder of the disabled and elderly with unilateral DNR Code Status and PAS laws will become routine. Only the very wealthy and/or noted will be able to buy more time.
Human Nature itself is not on the side of those who fight for the right to live for themselves and others.
We need to have rights for elderly and disabled or sick to not be euthanized because of their health or because our present health care system doesn’t see them as worthy human beginnings anymore or they r costing the healthcare system to be much money so they decide it is time for them to die and ethannaize them unbelievably cruelty