A new article for Katie Couric Media, attempts to make the case for expanding assisted suicide across the country, pointing to the recent implementation of assisted suicide in New York and arguing that such laws give terminally ill patients greater autonomy and control.
But the article quickly dismisses some of the most serious concerns raised by disability-rights advocates. It calls fears of coercion and abuse simply “wrong” and argues that existing safeguards adequately protect vulnerable patients. Although it ignores the many cases of abuse and coercion, it also ignores the fundamental inequality created when people with certain illnesses or disabilities can receive help ending their lives while other suicidal patients are offered prevention, treatment, and support.
The article also insists that assisted suicide does not result in more deaths, but merely “fewer people suffering.” That framing leaves little room for the concerns of people with disabilities who warn that autonomy does not exist in a vacuum. Decisions about death can be shaped by inadequate healthcare, lack of support, financial pressures, and a culture that too often treats disability and dependence as burdens.
When the law offers suicide prevention to some people but assisted suicide to others based on illness or disability, that is not equal treatment. Every patient deserves protection, care, and support, not a pathway to death.
Allyson Howell
Communications Director
France Citizens Now At Great Risk With New Euthansia Law You may have heard that France’s National Assembly overrode their Senate’s objection to a proposed euthanasia law, and legalized it. A review by the French constitutional court has since upheld it, with a some of important clarifications, a couple of which are disturbing: Like Canada
As Assisted Suicide Expands, Concerns Remain A new article for Katie Couric Media, attempts to make the case for expanding assisted suicide across the country, pointing to the recent implementation of assisted suicide in New York and arguing that such laws give terminally ill patients greater autonomy and control. But the article quickly dismisses some
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
