PRAF Statement on Implementation of Assisted Suicide in New York

A statement from Jessica Rodgers, coalitions director for the New York-based national organization Patients’ Rights Action Fund:
 
We join the New York Association on Independent Living in calling for more adequate reporting requirements before the state implements a life-ending system of assisted suicide. The comments of organizations looking out for the right of people with disabilities should be carefully reviewed, with more than two days between the end of the comment period and the law’s implementation date.
 
“Proceeding under these circumstances risks undermining the integrity of the public comment process and sends a trouble message to stakeholders, including the disability community, that their concerns are not being given the consideration they deserve,” the New York Association on Independent Living states.
 
More broadly, as New York assisted suicide goes into effect tomorrow it sends a dangerous message to people with disabilities, older adults, and seriously ill patients: that death is an acceptable substitute for care. At a moment when home care workers are in short supply and Medicaid supports are being cut, the state is offering lethal prescriptions instead of the treatment, pain management, and in-home support that patients actually need to live safely.
 
Expressing a desire to end your life is something that should always be met with suicide prevention, appropriate support services, and mental health care. This is especially important for people living with disabilities, people who are often assumed to be a burden on society or lack quality of life, even by their own doctors. Their lives are now in danger, rather than safe hands, if they come to doctors expressing a desire to end their life. This is compounded by the alarming lack of safeguards in actually implementing the law, as evidenced by the rushed time period to address public comments.
 
Our efforts will continue to challenge the fundamental violation of the rights of New Yorkers inherent in assisted suicide legislation. In addition to calling for more review of the physician reporting requirements, a coalition of disabilities advocates have challenged this law in federal court and are working with the legal team on a path forward, continuing to pursue justice and patients’ rights.
 
This legislation is a deeply flawed response that misdiagnoses the problem. Rather than expanding access to proven end-of-life care, pain management and support services, it places the lives, health, and safety of people with disabilities at risk.
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