Euthanasia Prevention Coalition-USA Statement
RE: New York Senate Bill S.2445 - Assisted Suicide also known as “Medical Aid in Dying”
Dear Senator:
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA supports positive measures to improve the quality of life of people, which also helps their families. We oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide. We are aging and disability advocates, lawyers, doctors, nurses and politicians.
Please let S.2445 die this session, while legislators are deeply divided amid heightened concerns about inequities for people of color and those living with disability. Proponents are trying to sell you a pig in a poke. It’s not about pain or a quick, peaceful death. Instead, it spawns more suicides and provides less healthcare. EPC-USA’s physicians and disability advocates have strong opposition to Assisted Suicide.
In addition, Expansion of physician assisted suicide, as we have seen in other states is part of any Assisted Suicide legislation.
Any safeguards are part of a deliberate bait and switch tactic by proponents to get a bill passed and then come back to amend it to gut these and other safeguards. This was openly acknowledged by J.M. Sorrell, Executive Director of Massachusetts Death with Dignity, who was quoted on a similar bill saying, “Once you get something passed, you can always work on amendments later.” (Link). Oregon, Washington, California, Vermont, Hawai‘i, and New Mexico all have provisions that dramatically waived any safeguards.
This incrementalist strategy is also confirmed by Compassion & Choices, who describes these changes from previous assisted suicide bills as “unnecessary” and claims they “will result in more patients being unable to access the law.”
It’s Not about Pain
I’m often asked if I want people to die in pain. You probably have been asked that question, too. Dr. Lonny Shavelson, a California doctor who helps people die says promoting “aid in dying” as avoiding pain is a political sales pitch. See webinar minutes 25:24-27:53. He says people choose assisted suicide because they are low energy or afraid of losing control.
It’s Not about a Peaceful or Quick Death
Dr. Shavelson says the idea that assisted suicide creates a peaceful beautiful death is another myth. See webinar minutes 37:35-41:00.
No amount of bill language can change the fact that some people will suffer prolonged and agonizing deaths from the experimental lethal drug cocktails, with some even regaining consciousness only to die of their terminal illness. Medical science cannot guarantee the peaceful death proponents claim. If lethal injections administered for capital punishment have resulted in inhumane deaths, oral ingestion of lethal drug compounds is far more likely to do so.
Assisted Suicide Spawns More Suicides and Attempted Suicides.
If you enact this law, more people will die by suicide, more will attempt suicide and more will visit Emergency Departments as a result. This is the collateral damage caused by these laws. They send a message that suicide is an acceptable way to solve problems. Publicity about suicide also leads to more suicides; this is called suicide contagion.
Legalization of Assisted Suicide especially impacts youths. A 2019 report found teen suicides in California increased by 34% since that state legalized Assisted Suicide in 2016. Oregon’s youth suicides increased 79.3% from 2000 to 2018. Research about completed suicides in four states that legalized Assisted Suicide (Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana) found it was associated with at least a 6.3% increase in the rate of all suicide deaths.
Insurance Companies Use Assisted Suicide to Deny Curative Life-Saving Treatment
Insurers stop covering certain treatments due to the availability of Assisted Suicide. Dr. Brian Callister of Nevada says he was stunned when insurance would not cover life saving treatment for his patients who were transferring to California and Oregon, but offered to pay for Assisted Suicide instead. These were people who could be cured but with the denied of treatment they are rendered terminal. In effect, Assisted Suicide is being used to shunt people off the curative, restorative medicine track, especially if they cannot afford to pay for treatments.
People of color understand this will be used to provide them poorer care. Even with insurance, people of color get poorer hospital care and pain relief according to a New York Times article. They are still disproportionately dying of COVID-19. So, it is unsurprising that Black and Latino people oppose Assisted Suicide by 2-1 margins (Link).
EPC-USA’s physicians realize the best practice for physicians to maintain the trust of the most vulnerable people groups among us (the young and old, the lonely, the disabled, the poor) is to reject Assisted Suicide.
EPC-USA physicians recognize the deadly downstream consequence: breakdown in patient/physician trust, moral injury and moral distress (lying on death certificate, assisting in suicide), suicide contagion, and (involuntary or voluntary) euthanasia.
EPC-USA Physicians reject codifying lethal and systemic disability discrimination into law.
"Federal study finds the nation's assisted suicide laws rife with dangers to people with disabilities" (Link).
EPC-USA’s Disability Rights Advocates remind us Assisted Suicide for the terminally ill very clearly normalizes discussions about whether it might be ok to help disabled people die by suicide. Without realizing it we can be blind to the reality that supporting Assisted Suicide individually and corporately is an example of ableism and perpetuates systemic racism for the poor, disabled, lonely, vulnerable and marginalized young and elderly individuals we serve.
No change in language alters the fact that offering suicide prevention to most people while offering suicide assistance (redefined as “aid in dying”) to an ever-widening subset of disabled people is lethal disability discrimination.
Advocates of assisted suicide assert that there has never been one case of abuse related to laws legalizing assisted suicide. Setting aside the inherent flaw of making such a broad assertion, for a list of abuse cases (Link).
No language can change the deadly mix between assisted suicide and a broken health care and home care system. As the cheapest “treatment,” assisted suicide diminishes choice, and especially so for people of color, disabled people, and others who have been historically marginalized in our health care system.
No language can change the problem of misdiagnosis or the unreliability of terminal prognosis. Jeanette Hall, John Norton, and Rahamim Melamed-Cohen have outlived ostensibly terminal prognoses by decades. All three became staunch opponents of assisted suicide.
In closing, I urge you to let this bill die.
Sincerely,
Colleen E. Barry, Chair
epc_usa@yahoo.com
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA