In this issue: -Why assisted suicide laws are inherently discriminatory against people with disabilities -Michael Hickson’s story of being denied care by his doctors based on subjective  quality of life judgements -2020 Legislative State Status Update -New free downloadable California advance health care directive  

Assisted suicide laws set up an ableist two-tier system, where some people get suicide prevention and others, namely those with life-threatening disabilities, get suicide assistance. This results in death to the devalued group. Nothing could be more discriminatory. A man named Michael Hickson died on June 11, 2020. He was denied food an fluids for 6

The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to adapt the way we access health care, and telehealth is now widely used to overcome many hurdles related to receiving in-person attention. But there are some contexts in which relying on telemedicine can be dangerous — even deadly. Telemedicine should never be used in the context of assisted

  Kristen Hanson, Community Relations Advocate with the Patients Rights Action Fund, joins host Steve Poizner on the Fight Back! podcast to discuss advanced healthcare directives, an important legal document that addresses such end-of-life issues as “do not resuscitate” orders, treatment options, healthcare proxies, and more.  Ashton Ellis, who is an attorney and expert on advanced

Jackie Bieber has been living every mom’s worst nightmare since May of last year. “On May 22, 2019, my daughter took her life, with the help of an assisted suicide website,” Bieber said. Her daughter, Shawn, battled depression and anxiety for years. Shawn had been seeing a therapist and taking medicine. Jackie Bieber says, if

A Black disabled man died from COVID-19 in Austin, Texas, after doctors declined to provide hydration, nutrition and treatment based on a “quality of life” decision. Disability advocates highlighted that the discriminatory attitudes behind these “quality of life” decisions are rampant — and dangerous. Michael Hickson, who was married and had five children, was hospitalized

It is tragic when patients are denied the treatment they need and deserve based on a subjective judgment about the quality of their life.  Subjective, qualitative medical judgements can be harmful and even deadly. Too often we are seeing medical professionals substitute these subjective quality of life judgments for authentic treatment, especially as they navigate

  Disturbing figures are coming from Sweden about the number of Covid-19 deaths amongst the elderly. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, half of the people who died in Sweden were residents of nursing homes… The health authorities have received many complaints about how elderly relatives were treated. A consistent theme is

  The Massachusetts Joint Public Health Committee recently reported out of committee the controversial bill (S.2745) that would legalize assisted suicide. This puts bill S.2745 one step closer to a vote. Some residents have asked: Other states have passed it, why not us? It is important to note that, compared to the states that have

After at least five legislative sessions without advancing beyond the committee stage, bills that would open the door to doctors prescribing lethal doses for terminally ill patients got favorable reports from the Committee on Public Health… The bills (H 1926/S 1208) that would legalize medical aid in dying – sometimes referred to as doctor-assisted suicide

Second Thoughts Massachusetts issues the following statement in opposition to the favorable report given by the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health to Bill S.1208/H.1926, legislation that would legalize assisted suicide in Massachusetts. John Kelly “I’m amazed and disappointed that as a deadly virus is stalking and killing older, ill, and disabled people, and

  “It is unthinkable at the outset of our tenuous Covid reopening that the MA public health committee would devote time to regressive, discriminatory assisted suicide legislation, which is fatally flawed and ripe for abuse, coercion, and mistakes. When care is expensive and suicide is cheap, what message are we sending to our elders, the

One person dies of suicide every eleven minutes in our country. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Americans between 10 and 34 years of age. The fight against suicide is in many ways, the rallying cry of the next generation. While the broad consensus to fight suicide across society has been extolled

  An elderly or disabled person will not be billed extra or be blocked from receiving health care because of high costs in Oklahoma, after passage of anti-discrimination legislation. On Friday, Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, approved the “Nondiscrimination in Health Care Coverage” Act, which would prevent a state agency from using age, chronic illness,

Arguments in support of assisted suicide often focus on patient choice.  Proponents argue that no one has to commit assisted suicide if they do not want to, and its legalization only expands patient choice.  Unfortunately, the sad reality is that assisted suicide impacts everyone’s health care choices because it creates perverse incentives for profit driven

  In today’s episode, we discuss assisted suicide and how the COVID-19 pandemic is shedding new light on the way patients are treated. We speak with Matt Vallière the Executive Director of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund whose mission is to protect patients’ civil rights and oppose efforts to make suicide a legal medical treatment

Legalizing assisted suicide in a society with unequal access to affordable health care, let alone end of life care, creates an unintended and unspoken pressure on terminally ill patients, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities to not to be a burden that constrains freedom of choice rather than expanding it.  This is especially dangerous in

As the COVID-19 pandemic hurdles us to the breaking point of our medical system in various hot spots across the country, we are being forced to face our faults and our fears in the raw. We are at a critical point in history, and how we care for vulnerable patients will be judged by generations

Assisted suicide laws abandon vulnerable people and remove society’s care at a time when it’s needed most.  Legalizing assisted suicide perpetuates the idea that some lives are not worth living and where do you logically draw the line? But we need look no further than America to see how these laws abandon vulnerable patients because