Sophia Sullivan

María José came to apply through our mutual connections at California League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization. She has worked in direct lobbying and worked in coalitions on human dignity issues, including assisted suicide, restorative justice, immigrant rights, victim empowerment, and advocacy on behalf of incarcerated persons. María José is a proud dreamer, born in Lima, Peru, who grew up in Northern California. She has an intuitive sense and passion for this issue, and we are grateful for her leadership and perspective…

A BMJ article titled “Some groups of terminally ill patients are twice as likely to die by suicide, data show” draws the wrong conclusion from the data surrounding increased patient suicide. The study referenced in the article, done by the Office for National Statistics, records that patients with some serious conditions are twice as likely as the general population to kill themselves compared to control groups with similar socio-demographic characteristics…

The Patients’ Rights Action Fund (PRAF) is pleased to announce a new focus for our colleague, Ian McIntosh, who will now be our Deputy Coalitions Director for Disability Outreach. He has long personal experiences with the intersection of disability and healthcare. Those experiences include being a patient/consumer as a person with a disability whose life was significantly affected following a serious car accident; as an end-of-life caregiver; and as a spouse to a person with disabilities.

Assisted suicide proponents are doing a bait and switch – they use “safeguards” to convince legislators to pass the bills only to strip away those same precautions a few years later. Proponents of assisted suicide in Washington state are doing exactly this, claiming there is a barrier to access the lethal drugs because of the meager ‘safeguards’ they promised would make the bill safe to pass in the first place…

The Washington Post published a piece on the debate happening in Delaware around assisted suicide bill HB 140. In the article, they summarize some of the stipulations in the bill:  “The bill states that any provision in a contract, will, or other agreement that would affect whether an individual could make or rescind a request …

Assisted Suicide is BAD Legislation Read More »

The Black Wall Street Times reports that a hospice organization in Tennessee is filling the gap in inequitable end-of-life care by catering specifically to the Black families in their community. The article reports that in Tennessee, just 19% of hospice patients are Black, despite Black families making up 27% of the population in the state. …

Underserved Communities, Hospice, and Healthcare Inequity Read More »

HBO Max’s “A Thousand Fangs” director Jaime Osorio Márquez died by assisted suicide in Colombia on December 23, 2021, after a years-long fight with kidney cancer. He was 46 years old. His producing partner and friend, Federico Duran, reportedly communicated that Osorio was compelled to end his life before he became a burden on his …

Choosing death over Interdependence Read More »