In the News
Legalizing assisted suicide would be disastrous
While some in the Massachusetts legislature support the proposed assisted suicide bill (H.4782/S.2745), legalizing assisted suicide would be disastrous for the most vulnerable among us. During this worldwide pandemic, compassion is at the forefront of everyone’s mind and everyone wants their loved ones to be cared for and comfortable at the end of life; but
The impact of assisted suicide on the most vulnerable members of society
Watch this new video from @hopeire1 on the impact of #assistedsuicide & #euthanasia for the most vulnerable members of society.
You Don’t Discourage Suicide by Assisting Suicides
September is National Suicide Prevention Month Luke’s Story “Every suicide is tragic – whether you’re old or young, healthy or sick, your life is worth living,” says Luke Maxwell, 19, who survived an attempt to take his own life.
Legalizing assisted dying can actually increase suicides
One of the arguments we hear is that assisted dying will bring down the number of violent suicides. It will provide a more peaceful death to patients in unbearable suffering who would otherwise have violently killed themselves. For other patients, the mere option of assisted dying (even if it will never be effectuated) is said
Investing in palliative care will help build a more compassionate society
We must invest in strengthening the nature of our society by raising the level of palliative care and resist all efforts towards facilitating the death of the vulnerable among us. Earlier this month, a cross party group of Parliamentarians heard from internationally renowned Dutch ethicist Professor Theo Boer who, in 2002, initially supported the legalization
Dutch euthanasia supporter warns UK to be wary of ‘slippery slope to random killing of defenseless people’
A champion of the Dutch euthanasia system has admitted that British critics are right to warn that assisted dying is a slippery slope to ‘random killing of the defenceless’. Dr Bert Keizer said that the type of patients whose lives are ended in the Netherlands has spread far beyond the terminally ill and now includes physically
Assisted suicide, care rationing threaten the disabled
New York is considering legalizing assisted suicide, but such a law would threaten the most vulnerable in society: the elderly, the terminally ill and people with disabilities. As someone who lives with a disability and advocates for the rights of people with disabilities, I strongly encourage the New York Legislature to reject assisted suicide,
The Prioritization of Life-Saving Resources in a Pandemic Surge Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic is shedding new light on the way patients are treated. In his recently published article, Dr. Jeffrey White discusses the prioritization of life-saving resources in a pandemic surge crisis. We must not allow brutal utilitarian calculus to sacrifice the principles of trust and equity on the altar of crisis, fear or latent
World Suicide Prevention Day: Here’s how to help
Every 40 seconds, someone in the world takes their own life. That’s at least 800,000 people a year, according to the World Health Organization, and the numbers are rising in some parts of the world. In the United States alone, suicide rates have increased by 35% between 1999 and 2018. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls
Pandemic reveals unethical bias
Michael Hickson was a 46-year-old African American resident of Texas, a quadriplegic with a brain injury. Despite these challenges, he was leading a fulfilling life with his family. Then he contracted COVID-19. Over the objections of his wife, doctors at a Texas hospital refused to treat Hickson, stating that lifesaving care wouldn’t be justified
Ableism in Medical Care Has Life or Death Consequences
Melissa Hickson’s husband, Michael, was a 46-year old quadriplegic suffering from COVID-19 who died after the hospital ended his treatment because of what they considered to be his low quality of life. Hickson’s experience, like mine, highlights the ableism that permeates our medical system and often results in a refusal to treat those whose
Assisted suicide is not the answer as long as racial disparities in care, disability bias go on
“I want to be able to live. I want my conditions effectively treated, and I want effective pain relief. But while Martignetti may assume he will get good care, Black people like me tend to receive inferior care because of racial disparities in cardiac care, diabetes, and cancer. Black people like me
UK bureaucrats imposed DNR orders on care homes: report
Everyone has a right to equal quality of care. We should reject ableism in all its forms, but especially in these life and death situations. ‘Nursing homes in the UK were asked by government health managers and family doctors to place blanket “Do not resuscitate” (DNR) orders on all residents at the height of
Wife goes to court to stop husband from obtaining assisted suicide
For the first time since assisted death was legalized in Canada in 2016, a judge has ordered that a request for medical help in dying be put on hold. A Nova Scotia man wants to die because of a lung disease that he says has left him near the end of his life. Katherine,
Should Massachusetts adopt the proposed assisted suicide bill?
Read two views and vote AGAINST assisted suicide in the Boston Globe’s online poll… Dr. Laura A. Petrillo Palliative care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital; Newton resident Although the United States is in the throes of the greatest health and economic crisis of our era, a bill to legalize physician-assisted death
The optics are not good: lessons from euthanasia in Canada
A closer look at the official figures is is disturbing. Four years after euthanasia was legalised throughout Canada on 17 June 2016, the “first annual report” covering euthanasia deaths in 2019 was released in July 2020. As the dead bodies pile higher – 13,946 of them in three and a half years according to
Older, ill and disabled people deserve choice-promoting services, supports
I disagree with Joan Milnes’s call for passage of the assisted suicide bill now in the legislature (“Making a final choice about quality-of-life,” July 28). Her framing of it as an individual matter of “choice” about one’s so-called “quality-of-life” is prejudicial and dangerous. Milnes’s example is her cousin Tony with cystic fibrosis who, at his
State Covid triage policies prompt fear of discrimination
State policies for rationing health care during the coronavirus pandemic could allow doctors to cut off treatment for some of the sickest patients in hot zones and revive the specter of so-called death panels, say disabled rights groups who are rallying the Trump administration to intervene. The effort has recently gained urgency due to guidelines
One Man’s COVID-19 Death Raises The Worst Fears Of Many People With Disabilities
What Melissa Hickson says happened to her husband — and what the hospital says — are in conflict. But this much is for sure: Michael Hickson, a 46-year old quadriplegic who’d contracted COVID-19, died at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center in Austin, Texas, on June 11 after the hospital ended treatment for him
Arizona is discriminating against the vulnerable to ration care. It must stop.
Discrimination in health care has only been exacerbated by the coronavirus, as state after state has considered Crisis Standards of Care that violate the civil rights and erode the inherent human dignity of elders and people with disabilities. Battling these CSCs has been like a frantic game of whack-a-mole for advocates and the federal government