Lying About Disabled People’s Welfare Is Wrong

By Meghan Schrader
Meghan is a disability activists and a member of the EPC-USA board.

Meghan Schrader

I’ve talked several times on this blog about the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, because it threatens new protections against euthanasia and infanticide. It also contains critical new protections to help disabled people stay in their communities rather than institutions, as well as improvements to internet access, support for disabled parents, etc. These protections directly impact disabled people’s quality of life, declines in which contribute to euthanasia, suicide and/or medical neglect.

The Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit takes the position that implementing the new community integration clarifications is “burdensome” to states. It asks the government to strike these regulations from the final rule and let disabled people shoulder the burden of being coerced into institutions for state convenience.

Alas, the Department of Justice, along with five other states, has joined a proposed resolution to the lawsuit in which the United States District Court Northern District of Texas would rule that the government must drop the community integration protections from the 2024 Final Rule. 

But I think that many EPC blog readers may not be aware of this.

To address this issue I have to mention the debate about whether the law should define gender dysphoria as a disability, but I’m also putting that issue aside for now, not because it isn’t something important that impacts vulnerable people, but to help EPC blog readers understand what the lawsuit actually says.

The original version of the lawsuit was partially precipitated by a section of the Final Rule that defined gender dysphoria as a disability and the lawsuit mentioned that, along with asking the government to vitiate all of the new protections in the Final Rule and Section 504 itself. Yet regardless of what one believes about whether Section 504 ought to define gender dysphoria as a disability, the President’s EO on gender identity issues specifically says that gender dysphoria is not a disability. That means that that provision of the Final Rule will not be enforced.

So, several states dropped out of the lawsuit and the lawsuit was amended to contest the rest of the Final Rule, especially its community integration mandate.

Since January of 2026, the lawsuit has not mentioned gender dysphoria at all; the text of the lawsuit makes this clear. Yet when agreeing to drop out of the amended lawsuit in May, Indiana’s attorney general wrote this on his Facebook page:

“With the Trump Administration’s swift action to reverse Biden’s unlawful expansion of Section 504, we have voluntarily dismissed our claims in a multi state lawsuit. Section 504 was never meant to advance a radical and woke agenda. It exists to protect Americans with real physical, intellectual, and developmental disabilities-not include gender dysphoria at the expense of those that need support.”

This statement is not accurate. The version of the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit that Indiana dropped out of in May 2026 says nothing about gender dysphoria.

Surely Indiana’s AG was aware of that, since it’s his responsibility to be apprised of the content of his own lawsuit.

Unfortunately, that statement seems like an attempt to hide the lawsuit’s contents from people in his political orbit who may agree that Section 504 shouldn’t define gender dysphoria as a disability, but might not be cool with coercing nonviolent disabled people into institutions.

Indiana’s AG is not the only government official erroneously claiming that the lawsuit was restricted to gender dysphoria; I’ve seen other AGs do it as well.

But aside from impacting disabled people who identify as all different genders and hold different beliefs about gender dysphoria-related policies, the lawsuit no longer has anything to do with gender dysphoria. 

It has to do with arbitrarily coercing disabled Americans of all socioeconomic backgrounds into institutions so that state officials can direct their energy and money to things other than community support. That’s it.

Lying is wrong, and lying about coercing disabled people into institutions for state convenience violates society’s moral obligations to persons with disabilities. 

Judge refuses to block Illinois assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A federal judge, on September 10, denied the request from disability rights advocates’ to block the Illinois assisted suicide law from going into effect on September 12.

Jeremy Gorner reported for the Chicago Tribune on September 10 that:

The ruling came in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year by two disabled patients, a doctor and several disability and patients’ rights organizations. They allege the state’s End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bars discrimination against people with disabilities; the Affordable Care Act, which regulates healthcare costs; and the plaintiffs’ equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But in his 25-page decision, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp rejected at least one of the plaintiffs’ arguments calling for a preliminary injunction to put the law on hold, disagreeing that doctors “will start inviting disabled patients to consider medical aid in dying” once the law takes effect.

On December 12, 2025 Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed assisted suicide bill SB 9 into law. The Illinois assisted suicide law is scheduled to go into effect later this week, on September 12, 2026.

We reported on September 9 that Hannah Meisel reported for Capital News Illinois on September 8 that disability rights organizations, on September 5, petitioned a federal judge to block the implementation of the Illinois assisted suicide law based on how the law contravenes the Americans with Disabilities Act, and is discriminatory against disabled people, who are more susceptible to physician bias and therefore coercion to end their life.

Gorner also reported that Tharp questioned the standing of the plaintiffs in the case.

As referenced in Tharp’s decision, one of the plaintiffs — a quadriplegic woman named Ebony Payne who is paralyzed from the neck down and has repeatedly been in serious life-threatening situations in hospitals — contended that for disabled people the law “removes the legal and ethical obligation of doctors” to act solely as healers by allowing them to respond to requests about procedures related to medical aid in dying. But the judge argued the plaintiff has not shown that she is a “qualified patient” under the law. 

The judge also noted Payne did not explain “why she is necessarily harmed” by the law if she does not seek a medical-aid-in-dying method “or the physician is in any event unwilling to provide such assistance.”

The Illinois assisted suicide law will go into effect on September 12. Tharp gave the plaintiffs 30 days to appeal the decision.

Assisted suicide laws give medical professionals the right in law to prescribe lethal poison for the purpose of suicide. The Illinois assisted suicide law is designed to make it impossible to prosecute a medical professional who assists a suicide, even in the most egregious cases.

Illinois Judge considers blocking assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On December 12, 2025 we reported that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed assisted suicide bill SB 9 into law. The Illinois assisted suicide law is scheduled to go into effect later this week, on September 12, 2026.

Hannah Meisel reported for Capital News Illinois on September 8 that disability rights organizations, on September 5, petitioned a federal judge to block the implementation of the Illinois assisted suicide law based on how the law contravenes the Americans with Disabilities Act, and is discriminatory against disabled people, who are more susceptible to physician bias and therefore coercion to end their lives.

Miesel reported that:

Thomas Geoghegan, who represents the disability rights groups, physician and disabled Illinoisans who brought the case, told U.S. District Judge John Tharp that the law upends the millennia-old tradition of the Hippocratic oath, a pledge doctors make to “first do no harm.” As a result, Geoghegan argued, EOLA will result in the “severe impairment” of the relationship a patient with disabilities has with his or her physician.

Miesel further reported that Geoghegan argued that:

“It’s our view, ultimately, this is authorizing a different standard of care,” he said.

Disability rights advocates fiercely opposed the two-year effort to pass the law, warning that physician bias in perceived quality of life may make doctors more inclined to encourage life-ending treatment over other options for people with disabilities.

Judge Sharp must decide if the Illinois assisted suicide law contravenes the Americans with Disabilities Act and is therefore discriminatory towards people with disabilities. Sharp said that he would make a decision before September 12.

On August 24, 2026 Molly Sweeney reported for WCIA news that Illinois agreed to a temporary order pausing assisted suicide law for certain hospitals and doctors.

On September 4, Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich and two orders of Catholic nuns launched a lawsuit seeking to block the Illinois assisted suicide law that is scheduled to to into effect on September 12, arguing that the law violates constitutional protections for free speech and religious freedom.

British government admits that disabled people may face ‘subtle pressure’ to choose assisted suicide, if bill passes

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

John Pring reported for the Disability New Service on September 3, 2026 that the British government admitted that disabled people may face 'subtle pressure' to choose assisted suicide if the assisted suicide bill becomes law. Pring reported that:

The impact assessment was published by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) last Thursday (August 28).

The assessment’s publication came on the same day that prime minister Andy Burnham wrote to Labour MPs to say he would not vote on the bill on 11 September because he did not want to “unduly influence the debate as prime minister”.

He had already told the media that he believed the funding crisis in palliative and social care should be fixed before there is any debate about legalising assisted dying.

And he has now also told ministers that as the government will remain neutral on the bill, they should “avoid being part of the public debate, and should not express views” about the implications of the bill for their own departments.

Pring reported that the government published three assessments of the assisted suicide bill on August 28.

On Thursday (28 August), DHSC and MoJ published three key documents that assess the “potential impacts” of the bill.

Their equality impact assessment of the bill accepts that disabled people “may be more susceptible to feeling as though they are a burden on those around them”, a key concern raised by campaigners opposed to legalisation.

The impact assessment says that this pressure “is not necessarily felt or applied by other people” but that disabled people “may feel subtle pressure due to attitudinal barriers or a lack of alternative appropriate services and support”, such as with the lack of access to palliative care.

It says these feelings of being a burden could also be caused by “structural pressures such as neglect, poverty and difficult living conditions”, while disabled people are twice as likely as non-disabled people to be victims of domestic abuse such as coercive behaviour.

And the equality impact assessment warns that factors such as high rates of poverty, poorer access to healthcare, lower quality care, and disproportionate levels of domestic abuse of black and Asian women could cause disproportionate numbers of minority ethnic people to choose an assisted death “to avoid financial hardship or escape abuse”.

It also highlights how older people, who are likely to be the main recipients of assisted dying, are “often dependent on those who care for them”, which puts them at increased risk of abuse and pressure to choose an assisted death.

And the assessment reports findings by the UN in 2021 that older people “may feel subtly pressured to end their lives prematurely”.

On November 29, 2024; the UK House of Commons voted 330 to 275 at second reading to support Kim Leadbeater's assisted suicide bill, a bill that was fatally flawed and died in the British House of Lords.

On June 17, 2026 Labour MP Lauren Edwards introduced a similar version to the Leadbeater bill that is scheduled to be voted-on at second reading on September 11, 2026.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is convinced that Edwards introduced a nearly identical assisted suicide bill as the Leadbeater bill in order to invoke The Parliament Acts, which allows the House of Commons to forgo approval from the House of Lords when passing two nearly identical bills within consecutive parliamentary sessions.

“Euthanasia And Arbitrary Institutionalization Are Both Immoral”

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader
Meghan is a disability activists and a member of the EPC-USA board.

As I’ve said, I think that one of the most effective ways to prevent euthanasia is for euthanasia opponents to be thinking about what kind of world we want people with disabilities to live in, and do what we can to link euthanasia prevention to creating a better world. 

Hence, I think it’s valuable for euthanasia opponents to be aware of the trend towards broad re-institutionalization that is happening in the United States right now, especially since we know that coerced institutionalization contributes to euthanasia.

Institutions often smell like pee. The odor of urine hangs in the air. If you live in an institution you might get the chance to do something fun once in a while, like make a craft or watch a TV show, but your options for recreation are limited. Your loved ones and friends might come visit you at designated hours. You eat whatever food the institution serves. Often if you want to go to the bathroom, an orderly will have to unlock the door for you. Maybe the person living in the room next to you screams constantly. Maybe your roommate died from a bedsore that became infected because there weren’t enough staff to take care of his needs. 

In many ways living in an institution is like living in prison, except the residents generally aren’t criminals.

So, as a euthanasia prevention advocate, I’m disturbed that apparently, that’s the world that Texas, Florida, Alaska, and the Department of Justice want for some disabled people.

As I’ve noted, a 1999 SCOTUS precedent called Olmstead LC. generally requires states to provide community supports to disabled people who would be unnecessarily institutionalized without them. Ie, SCOTUS held that there may be some people who do need institutionalization in a humane setting, like if they are homicidal, have no ability to care for themselves whatsoever or prefer to live in an institution. But within reason, states can't put disabled people in institutions because states prefer that to community support. This determination created Olmstead’s “community integration mandate,” which helps protect disabled people from living in institutions just because that’s where the supports are.

But now, Texas, Florida, Alaska and the DOJ are fighting to let states design their home and community support systems in a way that would make many disabled people unable to receive the support they need without living in an institution.

This would be the case even when the disabled people aren’t a threat to themselves or others.

Florida, Texas and Alaska are the three states still clinging to the aforementioned Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit. The lawsuit threatens euthanasia-preventing healthcare protections for disabled people, but especially takes aim at simple, straightforward 2024 guidance about how to implement Olmstead’s mandate that disabled people who aren’t a threat to themselves or others be able to receive services in their communities.

These guidelines were also outlined by DOJ guidance in 2011 and 2020 and aren’t complicated: they define what community integration means and what states must do to achieve it. The regulations define what it means to be at risk of unnecessary institutionalization, and clarify that disabled people need not wait until they are unnecessarily institutionalized to invoke their right to community support. 

But the remaining Texas vs. Kennedy plaintiff states complain that implementing the updated community integration guidance will “add new regulatory burdens and imposes substantial costs on the state.”

(You know, like how the Canadian government sees disability services as a burden, so it’s incentivizing its disabled citizens to die by (MAiD) euthanasia?)

The Department of Justice has been conferring regularly with these states, and despite community integration being enforced by every administration since the Clinton administration, including the President’s first administration, the DOJ is apparently poised to give these states what they want and more.

Repealing the 2024 guidelines would be destructive enough, but the DOJ has now said that longstanding legal interpretations of Olmstead's community integration mandate are null and void: there is no community integration mandate; states don’t have to serve disabled people in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.

For instance, having declined to enforce Olmstead, the Department of Justice has asked the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to vacate its ruling that Florida illegally withheld the community services necessary for medically fragile children to live at home with their families. A recent court judgment found that Texas violated the law by unnecessarily placing intellectually disabled adults in nursing homes, and the DOJ would like that ruling to be reversed. Alaska, the third state still pursuing the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, was found by the previous administration’s DOJ to have unnecessarily withheld community services from emotionally disabled children. The DOJ will likely seek to nullify that judgment as well.

Hence, the DOJ is failing to protect the same vulnerable people whose flourishing mis being undermined by the euthanasia movement, because that’s what the states of Texas, Florida and Alaska want the DOJ to do.

Incentivizing disabled people to die by assisted suicide violates society’s moral duties to people with disabilities. The current government’s approach to institutionalization also violates those principles. Coercing disabled people into institutions to get your political allies out of a legal pickle is an amoral thing to do.

A lot of people in the current government make vocal appeals to family and moral values. Is forcing intellectually disabled adults to live in understaffed nursing homes that smell like pee, and depriving disabled children of the opportunity to grow up with their families, consistent with those values?

I’m not writing about this issue to shame or praise people for how they vote; my commentary on how other disability issues are related to euthanasia is meant to be nonpartisan. I’ve met people from accross the political spectrum who care about disabled persons.

But recent government choices take steps toward creating a more limited and painful world for people with disabilities. Regardless of anyone’s intentions, making it easier for disabled people to be unnecessarily institutionalized contributes to a culture in which disabled people are so marginalized that offering assisted suicide seems normal and appealing.

It’s unjust to medicalize disabled people’s suicides in order to ease burdens on the medical system.

It’s also immoral for disabled people to shoulder the burden of living in institutions to relieve “regulatory burdens” on the state.

Author Note 1: I did an interview with moral theologian Charlie Camosy about how coerced institutionalization and assisted suicide are connected to one another. It can be read here.

Author Note: Here are the details about the updated Community Integration Mandate that is under threat. 

Disability groups: Open letter opposing assisted suicide

To Prime Minister Andy Burnham and MPs 
(Link to the Open Letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham)

We are writing to call for a halt to the legislative process around assisted dying until disabled and terminally ill people have as much support to live as this bill would provide for us to die.

We are a group of disabled and terminally ill people who agree that the status quo cannot continue. But we believe that the only safe way to reduce suffering at the end of life is to reform the social and palliative care systems before any move is made towards a programme of assisted suicide.

Throughout history, disabled people’s lives have been consistently devalued, and we still experience this in the present on a daily basis. We are constantly fed the narrative that we are burdens, benefit scroungers and that it’s better to be dead than disabled. Not only do some of us internalise these messages, so do many of the people we encounter or rely on for support. Many disabled people have been made to consider suicide — not by the impact of our conditions, but the social context we live in.

Before we can talk about choosing to die, we need real autonomy over how we live our lives. At the moment, sick and disabled people, including terminally ill people, are denied choice over the most basic of things: our ability to get out of bed, wash, eat, leave our houses or manage our pain. This creates a coercive environment where people will choose an earlier death simply because they are being failed by society. Put simply, introducing assisted dying in these circumstances will put sick and disabled people’s lives at risk.

The prime minister is right: we must reform the care system before this bill can be considered and disabled people must be included in the conversation.

We are calling for you to vote No on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill and then work with disabled people and our organisations to: Fully fund palliative care to ensure comprehensive and compassionate care is available to everyone who needs it, ensuring no one feels pressured to end their lives simply because they are not receiving the medical help they deserve;

Abolish the social care savings threshold for working-age social care users, so we can save for essentials and major life milestones such as a vehicle or home downpayment without risking our support, and are at less risk of financial coercion. End financial penalties and benefit reductions for disabled people who live with a partner, protecting financial independence and making it easier for those in coercive or abusive relationships to leave safely.

Equalise pay between social care and the NHS, thereby reducing staffing shortages and ensuring sick and disabled people receive professional care from well-trained care workers, vastly reducing suffering during and at the end of life; and
⁠Form a taskforce on independent and supported living, led by disabled people, and set out a time scale for implementing its recommendations within six months of its first report, so that we can move towards a society where terminally ill and disabled people have choices in all areas and stages of life, as well as at the end of it.

We understand the flaws in the current system. No one wants any terminally ill person to suffer unnecessarily at death. But we must protect the lives and rights of disabled and terminally ill people in life. We urge you to hear our voices, understand our fears and work with us to create a system that is safe for all: one that assists us to live.

Sincerely

Lucy Webster, Anna Landre, Jamie Hale, Kyla Harris, and Rensa Gaunt on behalf of The Assist Us To Live campaign 

Lucy Webster, Journalist and Advocate / Assist Us To Live

Anna Landre, Marshall Scholar, University College London / Assist Us To Live

Jamie Hale, Artistic and Executive Director, CRIPtic Arts / Assist Us To Live

Kyla Harris, Filmmaker / Assist Us To Live

Rensa Gaunt, Campaigner / Assist Us To Live

Liz Carr, Actor and Member, Not Dead Yet

Ruth Madeley, Actor

Baroness Jane Campbell of Surbiton, Member, House of Lords and Convenor, Not Dead Yet UK

Rosie Jones, Comedian

Samantha Baines, Actress and Broadcaster

Mat Fraser, Actor and Writer

Sophie Morgan, TV Presenter

Andrew Miller MBE, Cultural consultant & Broadcaster

Samantha Renke, Broadcaster

Mik Scarlet Wallace, Broadcaster and Co-CEO, Phab

Kamran Mallick, CEO, Disability Rights UK

Tracey Lazard, CEO, Inclusion London

Adam Gabsi, Chair, Inclusion London

Ellen Jones, Author

Cherylee Houston, Actor

Victoria Jenkins, Designer

Dr. Nora Groce, Professor, University College London

Dr. Eben Kirksey, Professor of Anthropology, University of Oxford

Catherine Holloway, Professor, University College London and Director, Global Disability Innovation Hub

Dr. Victoria Austin, Professor, University College London

Dr. Maria Kett, Professor, University College London

Natalie Kane, Curator, V&A and Deputy Leader of Lambeth Council, Green Party

Arthur Hughes, Actor

Rick Burgess, Care in Crisis Coalition and DPO Forum Co-Chair

Sarabajaya Kumar, Associate Professor, University College London and Director, Impatience Ltd.

Tracey Jannaway, Director, Independent Living Alternatives

Colin Brummage, CEO, Camden Disability Action

Rachel Charlton-Dailey, Journalist and Author

Cathy Reay, Writer and Journalist

Damian Joseph Bridgeman, Disability Task Force, Welsh Government and Chief Executive, Bridgeman Community Foundation

Selina Mills, Writer and Broadcaster

Shani Dhanda, Accessibility Specialist

Hannah Barham-Brown, NHS GP

Dr. Gordon Macdonald, Care Not Killing

Rachel Gadsden, Artist and Director

Tamm Reynolds, Artist

Dr. David Turner, Professor, Swansea University

Dermot Devlin, DPAC Northern Ireland

David Jones, Professor of Bioethics, St Mary’s University, Twickenham

Peter Gay, Director, Disability Advice Service Lambeth (dasl)

Dr. Kevin Yuill, Professor Emeritus, University of Sunderland

Doug Paulley, Reasonable Access

Natalya Dell, Trustee, Reasonable Access

Tanya Motie, Former TV Executive

Aisling O’Connor, Co-founder and CEO, The Rosie Jones Foundation

Sue Groves MBE, Disability Campaigner

Dr. Amy Kavanagh, Activist

Dr. Louise Hickman, University of Cambridge

Jess Thom, Artistic Director, Touretteshero

Iyiola Olafimihan, Non-Executive Director, Global Disability Innovation Hub and Justice and Campaigns Lead, Alliance for Inclusive Education

Dan Edge, Actor and Access Coordinator

James Moore, Journalist

Natalie Amber, Actor

Elle McNicoll, Writer

Dr. Rob George, Professor, King’s College London

Eleanor Lisney, Director, Sisters of Frida

Jillian Nystedt

Ella Glendining, Filmmaker

Andrew Clark, Chair of Trustees, BuDS Disability Service

Wednesday Holmes, Illustrator and Author

CJ DeBarra, Author and Journalist

Simon Ford, Trustee, Independent Living Alternatives

Penny Pepper, Writer and Trustee, Independent Living Alternatives

Carrie-Ann Lightley, Writer

Lou Chandler, Content creator

Isaac Harvey, Disability Advocate

Dr. Calum Miller

Angie Airlie, CEO, Stay Safe East

Clare-Louise English, Director

Dr. Ros Jones, Paediatrician

No One Has The High Ground On Disability Rights Part 2

By Meghan Schrader
Meghan is a disability activists and a member of the EPC-USA board.

No One Has The High Ground on Disability Rights Part 1 (Link).

Meghan Schrader

Like I’ve said, euthanasia falls on a spectrum of policies that marginalize and objectify people with disabilities. So, when I compare the policies of the United States and Canada, and look at the history of how American leaders from across the political spectrum have treated people with disabilities, I am tempted to despair about disabled people ever being any powerful leaders’ priority. This pattern of marginalization helps create the social conditions that make euthanasia seem like a legitimate solution to disabled people’s problems. 

We know that ableist institutional environments have contributed to coerced euthanasia in Canada. As I’ve mentioned, the USA Justice Department released a slip opinion saying that a 27-year-old federal community integration mandate that states provide enough community support for disabled people to avoid unnecessary institutionalization is essentially null and void; that mandate only forbids “unjustified” institutionalization and states can justify institutionalization however they want. 

In my opinion this development is selfish, bigoted and cruel. But the Province of Ontario in Canada has done the same thing with its More Beds Better Care Act, which allows euthanasia-eligible patients to be forcibly transferred to institutions far away from their families. 

In the past year and a half there have been several instances of USA disability policy regression that push disabled people towards bad life outcomes, and many disability advocates I know would go so far as to view the collective impact of these policies as a kind of authoritarianism. But the Canadian government taking over hospices that decline to participate in euthanizing disabled people that Canada has allowed to live in squalor and misery is no less authoritarian, especially when disabled Canadians have expressed the need for euthanasia-free healthcare spaces. “You had better kill people with disabilities on your property or the government will take over your hospice,” isn’t better than any disability policy being passed or suggested in the United States right now. 

Regardless of which political contingency most strongly influences US social policy, rhetoric that dehumanizes disabled people is everywhere. A conservative-leaning Catholic writer, JD Flynn, whose son has Down Syndrome, posted on X, “You’re not owning the libs by slurring disabled people.”

One X user tweeted back,

“As much as I understand your particular opposition to it, preserving the derogatory use of the word "retard" is in fact necessary for rejecting liberal control of language and defeating the euphemism treadmill which is taking over the English lexicon.”

Another X user wrote,

“Nobody calls disabled people retards anymore. They probably don't even remember what that word means. You're more likely to see a mentally handicapped person call you a retard for this post than to see one be offended by the use of the word.”

Bullies called me a retard when they threw rocks at me, pushed me into the dirt, used my blankie to clean a bathroom floor, pulled down my pants & said that they wished I was dead. I know what the r word means.

And disabled people who have been bullied with the r word do not exist to assist in “rejecting liberal control of language and defeating the euphemism treadmill which is taking over the English lexicon.”

Not that conservatives have a monopoly on this behavior. Remember back in 2008 when the leftist news site Wonkette wrote a despicable blog post about Trig Palin on his birthday?

If you thought that Governor Palin didn’t have the spoons to assume the presidency if Senator McCain died or if you loathed her policy positions that‘s fine, But it wasn’t ok for some liberal to create a vulgar meme taunting that in contrast to the many “retarded” things Palin had said, she had only given birth to one “retarded thing.”

It’s my experience that no matter whether society’s most powerful people identify as conservatives or liberals, leaders habitually ignore disabled people’s needs. This pattern helps create the social conditions for the euthanasia movement to flourish.

What Does ‘Suicide’ Have to do with the Oregon "MAiD" Model?

By Meghan Schrader

Meghan is a disability activists and a member of the EPC-USA board.

Meghan Schrader

One time when I was testifying at an Oregon model "MAiD" hearing I decided to describe one of my episodes of psychotic depression in detail, to try to get legislators to observe parallels between what I was describing and the experiences of terminal illness that the proponents were describing. It struck me as a way to illustrate the overlap between the Oregon Model proponents’ logic that "MAiD" is a valid response to end of life suffering, and expansionists’ logic that “psychiatric MAiD” is a valid solution for extreme mental suffering.

Also, the Oregon "MAiD" model proponents describe disturbing physical symptoms at hearings all the time. So it should be ok for me to describe my past severe psychiatric symptoms, right?

The legislators looked at me kind of like I was high and then made comments along the lines that what I had described had nothing to do with the proposed law, but they appreciated my bravery in sharing my story.

I feel kind of silly about that testimony now. After all, I was describing severe mental illness, not a terminal illness like cancer. Also, maybe providing all those details came across as trauma dumping and attention-seeking. Perhaps it would have sufficed to say, “Having experienced mental illness in the past and observed expansionists efforts to legalize psychiatric euthanasia, I think society should not take another step towards that world by legalizing the Oregon model.”

But I still think that talking about severe mental illness and suicidal ideation during discussions about the Oregon model is less ridiculous than those legislators seemed to think. As disability rights opponents of assisted suicide have pointed out, the distinction between “terminally ill” and “disabled” can be blurrier than the Oregon model proponents would like it to be. There are some people who can live for years with their disabilities with the proper support, yet would die quickly if that support were withdrawn. And some of those people experience suicidal ideation. Moreover, there have been instances of people with mental illnesses like anorexia nervosa dying by assisted suicide. This abuse thins the distinction between “suicide” and assisted suicide” that the Oregon model proponents perceive.

Furthermore, some proponents have openly admitted that they want to medicalize disabled people’s suicides; famous euthanasia activist, Thaddeus Mason Pope told me so.

Nevertheless, I’ll entertain the position that there may often be meaningful distinctions between the “Oregon MAiD model” and “regular” suicide, with respect to the reasoning behind the decision, the possibility of graphic violence, the typical impact on family members, the length of time that the person had left to live, etc. So, I can understand why there are a lot of people who think that equating the Oregon "MAiD" model and suicide is “silly.”

I’ll again use my former pastor as an example. This pastor was a wonderful person and a dedicated faith leader. She did a lot of great work with marginalized people. She was also very anti-suicide. One time when I was sobbing in front of her about how much pain I was in during a bad bout of depression, she asked, “I don’t want to scare you, but as your pastor I need to know: are you having any thoughts about hurting yourself? Is there anything that we need to do to keep you safe?”

I wasn’t planning to harm myself, but I appreciated the compassion behind the pastor’s question.

This pastor also did a lot of terrific work with terminally ill people, and she disagreed with me about the Oregon assisted suicide model. When we had a friendly debate about the issue, she said, “Having been with people who have experienced a horrible death from Glioblastoma, I strongly reiterate my comments. And I hope that I would have the grace to make a similar choice.”

Obviously I disagree with the pastor, but I feel able to respect her motivations and logic. After all, she had had years of working with terminally ill people and I hadn’t. And she had worked with a lot of people experiencing suicidal ideation. So although assisted suicide and “regular” suicide both involve dying by one’s own hand (and hence meet the technical definition of suicide) I can “get where she was coming from.”

Unfortunately, not all assisted suicide proponents think like my former pastor. Some of them would like to expand assisted suicide to disabled people who aren’t dying. And that’s a situation where I think proponents’ distinction between assisted suicide and suicide is indisputably linked to ableism.

Disabled people are already systemically excluded from suicide prevention. Peer-reviewed research shows that there is a high suicide rate among people with disabilities and that people are more likely to think suicide is acceptable if the victim is disabled. There is also a lack of suicide prevention resources designed for people with disabilities. In that context, suicide prevention organizations equivocating on whether disabled people’s assisted suicide deaths are suicides falls into a longstanding pattern of abandonment.

The Oregon assisted suicide model proponents’ argument that assisted suicide is never suicide would be on much firmer ground if the Oregon model had never been used to kill people with anorexia, and if it were the only assisted suicide model that existed anywhere in the world. But it isn’t. Moreover, the Oregon model movement leaders routinely do things that normalize discussions about expanding assisted suicide such as by rubbing elbows with assisted suicide expansionists who have said that medicalizing the suicides of disabled people is ok. Compassion and Choices leaders cannot possibly have missed People Magazine and the New York Times’ enthusiastic platforming of people with chronic mental illnesses who would like to die by assisted suicide. Compassion and Choices leaders have published statements declining to take a position on whether Canada’s euthanasia (MAiD) program is ok, even though the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of People With Disabilities says that it’s not.

In short, although the Oregon model is ostensibly limited to terminally ill persons, it is helping to normalize the expansive proponents’ position that disabled people’s suicides are therapeutic.

Author Note: For a nuanced discussion of why what the Oregon Model proponents call "MAiD" is best described as “Assisted Suicide,” and why such “MAiD” is most accurately understood as a variation of suicide, read Harold Braswell’s article, “In Defense of "Physician-Assisted Suicide": Toward (and Back to) a Transparent, Destigmatizing Debate.”

I am proud to be an American. And I am not disposable.

The text of a speech by Meghan Schrader on July 3rd at an ADAPT of Texas rally to save the 2024 Final Rule’s updates to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Meghan Schrader

Meghan Schrader

Disability activist and member of the EPC-USA Board

I am asking Attorney General Paxton to show compassion and respect to disabled people by dropping the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, which seeks to have the 2024 Final Rule’s updates to Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act, one of our nation’s flagship disability access laws, declared unconstitutional.

Some decent people I’ve tried to talk to about Texas vs. Kennedy dismiss disability advocates’ concerns about this lawsuit as “woke hysteria.” But the accessibility guidelines that are outlined in the Final Rule are not “woke politics” or a culture war issue, they are a matter of human dignity.

The practices outlined in the Final Rule are necessary to meet the human family’s moral obligations to people with disabilities.

The Declaration of Independence says, 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Disability Inclusion: The Americans With Disabilities Act is Not ‘Liberal Fascism’

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

As I’ve said, I think it’s important that euthanasia opponents try to develop a cursory understanding and appreciation for disability inclusion efforts, especially in light of several recent policy efforts that are harmful to people with disabilities. This post is for “MAiD” opponents who may understand that “MAiD” harms people with disabilities, but also view statutes like the Americans with Disabilities Act as a burden or intrusion on personal liberty.

In choosing an example of such thinking, I found myself remembering a passage from assisted suicide opponent Jonah Goldberg’s 2007 book “Liberal Fascism,” in which he does a great job tracing the right to die movement’s roots in the eugenics movement, but then argues that the Americans With Disabilities Act’s effects on small businesses make the ADA “fascist.”

Goldberg writes:

“In Nazi Germany businesses proved their loyalty to the state by being good “corporate citizens,” just as they do today…let us concede that what the Nazi regime expected of “good German businesses” and what America expects of its corporate leaders differed enormously. This doesn’t change some important fundamental similarities. Consider, for example, the largely bipartisan and entirely well-intentioned Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, celebrated everywhere as a triumph of “nice” government.”

It’s not OK to compare the Americans with Disabilities Act to the policies of Nazi Germany, especially given the Nazis’ mass murder of the disabled.

Also, the Americans with Disabilities Act is not “nice;” it requires society to accommodate disabled people, even if some of the people doing the accommodating hate the disabled people’s guts. Because that’s what has to happen in order for disabled people to be fully functional members of society.

Goldberg goes on to complain:

“The law mandated that businesses take a number of measures, large and small, to accommodate customers and employees with various handicaps…Now imagine that you own a small, regional soft drink company. You’ve worked tirelessly toward your dream of one day going eyeball-to-eyeball with Coke or Pepsi. Proportionally speaking, making your factories and offices handicapped-friendly will cost you vastly more money, not just in terms of infrastructure, but in terms of the bureaucratic legal compliance costs (Coke and Pepsi have enormous legal departments; you don’t).”

Disabled people do not have an obligation to experience daily humiliation for a small soda business owners’ dream of going eyeball to eyeball with Pepsi any more than we have a duty to be demoralized and die for “MAiD” proponents’ designer deaths.

Goldberg laments,

“Or imagine you’re the owner of an even smaller firm hoping to make a play at your regional competitors. But you have 499 employees, and for the sake of argument, the ADA fully kicks in at 500 employees. If you hire just one more, you will fall under the ADA. In other words, hiring just one more thirty thousand-dollar-a-year employee will cost you millions.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act actually kicks in at 15 employees, but more importantly accessibility adjustments do not cost “millions.” There are also government tax incentives and grants to help small businesses offset the cost of complying with the ADA, but Goldberg does not mention that.

Overstatements about the expense of accommodating disabled people draw from the same “burden to society” trope that permeates “MAiD” ideology. Goldberg continues:

“The ADA surely has admirable intent and legitimate merits. But the very nature of such do-gooding legislation empowers large firms, entwines them with political elites, and serves as a barrier to entry for smaller firms.”

The ADA is not “do gooding,” it is one of the only tools disabled people have to ensure that we are treated with at least a modicum of dignity. To put it bluntly, it is selfish to try to consign disabled people to ignominy so that your small soda business can compete with Coca Cola.

Goldberg goes on to claim,

“Indeed, the penalties involved in even trying to fire someone can amount to guaranteed lifetime employment. Smaller firms can’t take the risk of being forced to provide a salary in perpetuity...”

No, that’s not how it works. No business provides “salaries in perpetuity” to employees with disabilities. The Americans With Disabilities Act requires that disabled people be “otherwise qualified” for their jobs and that accommodations not place an “undue hardship” on the employer. Employers are given significant latitude to decide which situations fall under these clauses and it is very easy for disabled people to lose our jobs. This causes the poverty that can push disabled Americans with life-threatening disabilities toward “MAiD.”

If Goldberg were disabled, he would like the Americans With Disabilities Act a lot more. In comparison to the experiences of disabled people who would not otherwise be able to enter a small business to buy a soda, a soda company’s desire to compete with Coca Cola is rather trite.

I mention Goldberg’s 2007 statement because I am wondering if the current American government has implemented or suggested so many damaging disability rights policies because many of its supporters are people like Goldberg who have said “Man, implementing laws like the Americans With Disabilities Act is a pain in the head. Could you eliminate them, or at least make their requirements more “reasonable,” please?

But maintaining a fair society requires some level of sacrifice from its members. Right to die proponents do not have the right to medicalize disabled people’s suicides so that they can die with champagne in their hands and small business owners do not have the right to undermine disabled people’s dignity so that their small businesses can compete with Coca Cola.

So, other euthanasia opponents, don’t be like Jonah Goldberg. If you want euthanasia prevention to fully promote the dignity of disabled people, demonstrate full support of laws like the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Canada's disabled deserve supports, not faster path to death

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Krista Carr

Krista Carr, the CEO of Inclusion Canada had a special article published in the London Free Press on June 15, 2026.

This article was published two days before the report of the Special Joint Euthanasia Committee report recommending that the Canadian government not extend euthanasia to mental illness alone.

Carr explains that the Canada's original euthanasia law that was passed in 2016 was essentially limited to people with a terminal condition who were suffering.

Carr suggests that most Canadians believe that the law remains the same, but in fact Canada's law was expanded in 2021 to include people with disabilities who are not terminally ill. Carr explains:

But Canada’s MAID framework has evolved significantly since then. In 2021, Parliament expanded the law through Bill C-7, creating two pathways for assisted death. The first pathway applies to people whose natural death is imminent and expected soon (reasonably foreseeable).

The second — known as “Track 2” — allows separate access to MAID for individuals with disabilities who are not dying.

This expansion fundamentally changed the scope of assisted dying in Canada.

Track 2 means that assisted suicide may be available to people living with disabilities even when they are not nearing the end of life. Thousands of Canadians have already accessed MAID through this pathway. Between 2021 and 2024, a total of 2,050 people died from Track 2 MAID.

Carr explains the significance with expanding the law.

People with disabilities and disability organizations across the country have warned that Track 2 creates serious risks. Many individuals seeking MAID have described suffering related not to medical conditions alone but to poverty, housing insecurity, social isolation or lack of disability supports.

These are not medical failures. They are social failures.

For people with intellectual disabilities and many others in the disability community, the concern is straightforward: no one should feel that assisted suicide is easier to access than the supports needed to live with dignity.

Carr suggests that Canada's euthanasia law combined with homelessness, poverty and a gap in disability supports, combined poor access to mental health and community supports has created a serious problem for people with disabilities. Carr writes:

Against this broken backdrop, expanding assisted death beyond end-of-life situations risks sending a troubling message — that the suffering created by social inequality can be addressed through assisted suicide rather than social reform.

And now Parliament is once again debating whether to expand MAID further to also include mental illness. But what happened to suicide prevention? Are people with disabilities not entitled to the same suicide prevention as everyone else?

Carr then comments on the recent parliamentary hearings by the Special Joint Committee on Medical Aid in Dying, that yesterday recommended to parliament that euthanasia for mental illness not be implemented in Canada. Carr continued

Legitimate questions have been raised about whether Canada’s current framework adequately protects people who are living with structural disadvantage. 

These questions are now before the courts. A coalition of disability organizations, including Inclusion Canada, has launched a Charter challenge arguing that Track 2 violates equality rights and the right to life guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The case asks whether Canada’s laws are discriminating against people with disabilities by allowing assisted death in circumstances where death is not imminent. 

Canadians should agree on one principle: people with disabilities deserve the same commitment to dignity, support and opportunity as anyone else. 

Persons with disabilities deserve the same response other Canadians receive when they are suffering: investment in supports, housing, and mental health services, not a faster path to death. Our politicians should be helping people live meaningful lives, not end them.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports the challenge by Inclusion Canada to eliminate Track 2 euthanasia (people who are not otherwise dying). We agree that Canada's euthanasia law focuses on killing people with disabilities with Track 2 cases being exclusively for people with disabilities.

We also thank Krista Carr and Inclusion Canada for their leadership. 

Lawsuits filed to overturn New York and Illinois assisted suicide laws

The Institute for Patients' Rights joined two federal lawsuits, one in New York and one in Illinois, with a coalition of national and state-based disability and patient advocacy organizations. For both states, Not Dead Yet, United Spinal Association, and the National Council on Independent Living, are organizational plaintiffs. 

For New York, other organizational plaintiffs include: Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley, Regional Center for Independent Living, and Self-Initiated Living Options, Inc. Two individuals are named plaintiffs as well, Anita Cameron and Jose Hernandez.

In Illinois, the individual plaintiffs are Ebony Payne, Pam Heavens, and Nooshig Luz Salvador. Joining them are additional organizational plaintiffs: Progress Center for Independent Living, and Chicago ADAPT.

Both lawsuits state assisted suicide law violates core protections under the U.S. Constitution and federal civil rights laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. 

The suit argues that the assisted suicide statutes in New York and in Illinois will single out people with disabilities and other vulnerable individuals, placing them at risk of premature death rather than ensuring access to care, support and suicide prevention services.

“Assisted suicide laws in New York and Illinois create a separate and unequal system in which people with life-threatening disabilities are offered death instead of the support programs everyone else gets,” said Matt Vallière, president/executive director of plaintiff organization Institute for Patients' Rights. “These legal actions are about affirming that every person has inestimable value and dignity, regardless of age, disability, or prognosis, and ensuring that no one is treated as disposable under the law.” 

José Hernández, an individual plaintiff for New York, a person with disabilities, and a member of plaintiff organization United Spinal Association, spoke about how America once cared about preserving lives and prioritizing treatment to extend life. His mother was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer when she was 28 years old and he was only eight. Doctors estimated she would live for only six months.

“At the time, assisted suicide was not available, and thankfully so,” Hernández said. “Doctors did everything they could, her insurance paid for life-saving treatment, and my mother survived for 13 years. If she had chosen to end her life, I would have missed out on 13 years of goodnight kisses, home-cooked meals, and the opportunity to be raised by a mother who made me the strong man I am today.”

Representing the Illinois plaintiffs, Ebony Payne said, “I joined the lawsuit because of personal experiences that brought me really close to death and the people who I leaned on to do the right thing became the people to do the opposite. The Illinois law is a trainwreck and is not what you expect from people who are obligated to do no harm.”

These are the 4th and 5th lawsuits in the federal court system. These lawsuits put us one step closer to the Supreme Court and total victory over a eugenic public policy that undermines the inestimable value and dignity of each one of us. Onward and upward!

“Emotional Support Animals, Assisted Suicide And Suicide Prevention”

Content Warning: Discussion of A Disabled Person’s Death By "Suicide" 

 

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader
Disability activist and member of the EPC-USA Board

As I’ve said, I think it’s important for euthanasia opponents to understand how disability policy impacts disabled people’s lives, how euthanasia can relate to those policies, and do what they can to advocate for better disability supports. So I am going to comment on the USA Office of Housing and Urban Development’s decision to not enforce/eliminate the Fair Housing Act’s protections for Emotional Support Animals.

My cat, Lucy, is my Emotional Support Animal. She is one of the best things in my life. Every night when I go to sleep, she curls up on the pillow next to mine. I place my hand against her smooth, soft fur and listen to the gentle rumbling of her purr. Often the anxiety and insomnia I struggle with eases and I am able to drift off to sleep. Every morning Lucy wakes me up by tapping me with her paw and nuzzling my face, as she makes little grunts and trills.

Lucy

Lucy also greatly contributes to my understanding of myself as a fully functional adult: Yes, my mental illness and neurological disabilities sometimes cause independent living struggles, but my cat is still alive and doing well, so I must be doing some things right.

So, Lucy is essentially a furry antidepressant that compliments the effects of pharmaceutical intervention. Residual symptoms of depression would be much less controlled if I did not have Lucy.

Unfortunately for people like me, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has decided not to enforce the Fair Housing Act’s provision for emotional support animals.

In addition to no longer investigating ESA Fair Housing Act complaints, HUD has indicated that it intends to update the FHA’s 1989 assistance animal regulations to exclude ESAs.

HUD now only wants to enforce the part of the FHA requiring landlords to accommodate service animals who perform specific tasks.

Service animals and ESAs are not the same thing. Service animals are trained to do complex tasks to accommodate specific symptoms of a person’s impairment that inhibit independent living. ESAs do not perform specific tasks but have long been recognized as important tools for people with emotional disabilities.

HUD’s actions increase my risk of having to choose between housing and my precious Lucy.

For instance, my low income makes it difficult to afford the pet fees that are waived for ESAs. My landlord could decide that since HUD no longer recognizes ESAs, I could not have Lucy in my apartment. Limiting protections for ESAs means that if I wanted to move to a new apartment for an education or job opportunity, landlords could deny me housing because of Lucy.

According to HUD’s memo, it might still be possible for tenants to seek redress under Section 504 and the ADA. But, one of the flaws in those laws is that neither contains explicit protections for ESAs. The ADA restricts its definition of assistance animals to service animals. This is the template HUD will now base its policies on.

I think some readers may perceive a proliferation of spurious disability complaints, especially around ESAs. But I can tell you from experience that the process of resolving any legitimate disability discrimination complaint tends to be drawn out and burdensome for the filer. HUD’s new blanket policy striking the Fair Housing Act’s provisions for ESAs makes any remaining ESA protections even more difficult to invoke. HUD has removed an important tool for ensuring that vulnerable people who need ESAs can have them.

Perhaps the best way to explain how this policy change relates to euthanasia prevention is to tell the story of “Jane.” Jane was a disabled Canadian woman with autism and depression that I met on #DisabilityTwitter. Jane’s severe depression, autistic dysregulation and various traumas caused chronic housing instability. When I met Jane, she did have an apartment, but the environment wasn’t suitable for someone with her disabilities. Jane was isolated from her family and experiencing poverty. One of the only sources of joy in Jane’s life was her cat.

At first, Jane was angry that Canada had legalized “Track 2 MAiD” instead of funding disability supports; participating in viral hashtags like #AidNotMAiD. But Jane’s mental health and housing situation gradually became more precarious. As Jane’s anguish intensified, she evolved into one of the only disabled Canadians I met on X who thought “Track 2 MAiD” was a good idea.

Lack of accommodations for depression and autism gradually eroded Jane’s sanity, until her tweets became a combination of volatile despair and heartbreaking pleas for help. Jane tweeted about having loud autistic meltdowns.

Rather than show compassion, neighbors fought to have Jane evicted from her apartment.

Many of Jane’s panicked tweets about impending homelessness were about her fear that she wouldn’t be allowed to take her cat to a homeless shelter, and she would have to surrender her cat to an animal shelter, “And then I’ll never see her beautiful face again!”

So, once she had enough evidence that homelessness was inevitable, Jane killed herself “the old fashioned way.”

HUD’s new policy increases the risk of these kinds of scenarios. HUD’s decision to restrict disabled people’s access to beloved emotional support animals will cause the USA’s most marginalized disabled people to suffer more. And that suffering will be just as real as the suffering of disabled Canadians having “MAiD” suggested to them in emergency rooms. Policies like HUD’s recent decision will contribute to the high rate of suicide in the disabled community. And those “regular” suicides will be just as tragic and preventable as the coerced “MAiD” suicides in Canada.

It is important that euthanasia opponents not support policies like this. If you want to save disabled people’s lives, protect our access to the things we need and love.

Author Note 1: For another essay about what Lucy means to me, see my blog post, Society Should Treat Disabled People Like My Cousin Treats Me and “It.”

Author Note 2: Apparently HUD website's entire page about assistance animals, archived by the Wayback Machine as recently as May 23, 2026, has been removed.
 

Author Note 3: Here is HUD’s memo about the rule change.

Author Note 4: Here is the Disability Rights Education And Defense Fund’s briefing on the rule change.