Patients Rights Action Fund
Resources
Use the downloadable resources on this page to better understand the dangers of assisted suicide laws. Please help us educate others by sharing these resources with your friends, family, neighbors, and legislators.
7 Reasons to Oppose Assisted Suicide
Learn the facts and get informed on why assisted suicide legislation is so dangerous for those most vulnerable in our society.
Get the Truth
The truth about assisted suicide is not as simple as it seems. Assisted suicide is currently legal in only eight states and the District of Columbia. See our infograph.
(2 Minute Overview)
Assisted Suicide Targets Individuals with Disabilities
Independent federal study finds assisted suicide laws rife with dangers to people with disabilites. (40 Minute Overview)
Incremental Strategy
Proponents deliberately and steadily strip safeguards away from assisted suicide bills around the world and in the United States. These put more populations at risk in incremental stages.
Unintended Consequences
If assisted suicide is legal, lives will be lost due to mistakes, abuse, or lack of better options…
Organ Harvesting
Conjoining assisted suicide and euthanasia with organ harvesting, a concept once thought ghoulish and inconceivable, is now being painted as responsible and enlightened.
Mental health conditions are ignored.
Depressed patients get the lethal drugs.
Drug Combinations
Lethal experimental drug combinations used for assisted suicide cause complications for patients.
The Tragic Reality of Veteran Suicides in Oregon
Significantly higher than the national veteran suicide rate…
People of Color
Assisted suicide laws place people of color and people from other marginalized communities at increased risk of deadly harm due to racial disparities in healthcare.
Inevitable Expansion
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.
We are proud to introduce our next Coalitions Director, María José Fernandez Flores!
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…
BMJ article about increased patient suicide draws wrong conclusions
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…
Introducing Deputy Coalitions Director for Disability Outreach
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.
Newsletters
For more resources and news, visit our entire past collection of newsletters.
