Repealing the Final Rule Would Be Tragedy For Opposition To Euthanasia.

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

As I’ve mentioned, the Final Rule, a 2024 update to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, is one of the best tools that the anti euthanasia movement has had in decades. The Final Rule strengthens Section 504 and the Americans With Disabilities Act in several ways, including new prohibitions against medical personnel pushing disabled people towards death. These provisions are new bulwarks against assisted suicide, coerced DNRs, futile care statutes and the infanticide of disabled babies; such as in the 1982 Baby Doe case. Everything groups opposing euthanasia need to avoid a Canada-like situation is in those regulations.

The Final Rule not only addresses futile care statutes, assisted suicide and infanticide, it also contains numerous other beneficial provisions. For instance, the Final Rule contains new protections for disabled parents, internet access, accessible medical equipment and better community services for disabled people at risk of being institutionalized. Hence, the Final Rule will help protect disabled Americans from the scarcity that is pushing disabled Canadians towards euthanasia.

But in 2025, 17 states filed the Texas vs. Becerra lawsuit, now called Texas vs. Kennedy. The original lawsuit sought to repeal the entire Final Rule, as well as Section 504 itself. (The challenge to Section 504 itself was dropped after backlash.)

In addition to multiple disability protections that I think EPC blog readers from across the political spectrum can agree on, one clause of the Final Rule defined gender dysphoria as a disability. This was one of the reasons that the 17 states filed suit against the Final Rule.

But the gender dysphoria issue is currently a moot point. Regardless of whether one believes that gender dysphoria ought to be defined as an impairment, the President’s executive order on gender issues means that this government will not enforce that part of the Rule. So, eight of the original 17 states dropped out of the lawsuit.

But 9 states still want to eliminate the rest of the Final Rule. Texas, Florida, Alaska, Indiana, Missouri, Louisiana, Kansas, Montana and South Dakota want the government to avoid “burdening” states with the Rule’s requirement that states institute new supports for disabled people at risk of being institutionalized. So, on January 23rd, 2026, those states filed an updated version of their lawsuit. This iteration of the lawsuit makes no mention of gender dysphoria or repealing Section 504 itself, but it still seeks to have the entire Final Rule set aside.

I am also very worried that even if the lawsuit is dropped, HHS and the Department of Justice will rescind the entire Final Rule anyway.

This would be a shame, because the Final Rule is a critical tool for achieving opposition to euthanasia.

Groups opposing euthanasia have always fought the infanticide of disabled babies, which we know happens periodically in hospitals across the US and abroad because doctors make prejudiced judgments about the value of the babies’ lives. (Such as the UK Alfie Evans case.) Section 84.56 specifically addresses this problem. To quote from the text of the Final Rule:

“Comments: Several commenters asked the Department to clarify the application of § 84.56 to newborn infants.

Response: As indicated within the NPRM, the Department considers section 504, including § 84.56, to apply to newborn infants. This includes the prohibitions against the denial of medical treatment under § 84.56(b)(1) and (2), and the prohibitions on the discriminatory provision of medical treatment under § 84.56(b)(3).

Comment: One commenter objected based on its understanding that the Department's proposed rule would not apply to decisions to withhold treatment from infants with disabilities in which the disabling condition is related to the condition to be treated, noting that § 84.56(b)(2) addresses treatment for a separately diagnosable condition or symptom and not for the underlying disability. The comment concerned infants with disability conditions such as meningomyelocele, hydrocephaly, microcephaly, or other anatomical anomalies. The comment noted that failure to treat these conditions represents discrimination against a child with a disability.

Response: The Department believes that this comment misconstrues the section 504 rule. The Department intends that this rule will generally apply to the provision of medical treatment for infants, including those seeking treatment for separately diagnosable symptoms or conditions related to their underlying disability, when medical treatment is provided to other similarly situated children. For example, an infant with microcephaly may experience seizures. This would constitute a separately diagnosable symptom or condition for which treatment would be subject to the protections of § 84.56(b)(2) despite the fact that the seizures are a symptom of the infant's microcephaly. As the Department's NPRM made clear, with respect to separately diagnosable conditions, the rule will not require that the condition be entirely unrelated to the underlying disability. “Nor does it matter for these purposes whether the condition for which the individual is seeking treatment is in some sense causally related to the underlying disability if the decision to refuse treatment would not be made as to similarly situated individuals without the disability.” 88 FR 63405. In addition, § 84.56(b)(1) prohibits denying or limiting medical treatment to a qualified individual with a disability based on bias or stereotypes about that patient's disability, judgments that the individual will be a burden on others due to their disability, or a belief that the life of a person with a disability has a lesser value than the life of a person without a disability or that life with a disability is not worth living. Under such circumstances, the discrimination described by the commenter would also be covered under § 84.56(b)(1) even if the condition for which the patient sought treatment was not a separately diagnosable symptom or condition from their underlying disability.”

So, if you are fighting infanticide, the Final Rule is your best friend. 

Opposition to euthanasia has also always fought futile care laws, like those that exist in Texas and California, which allow hospital ethics committees to override patients’ and families’ desires for life-saving care that ableist physicians consider “futile.” For instance, the anti-futility provisions in the Final Rule were inspired by the case of Michael Hickson, who was denied treatment for COVID-19 because he was a quadriplegic. The Final Rule forbids such authoritarianism. It is the anti euthanasia movement’s best shot at eliminating futile care laws once and for all.

An excerpt about the Final Rule’s prohibition on medical futility reads as follows:

“The Department proposed §  84.56(b)(1)(iii) to prohibit recipients from denying or limiting medical treatment based on the provider's belief that the life of a person with a disability has a lesser value than a person without a disability, or that life with a disability is not worth living.

Comments: The Department received a broad array of comments from disability organizations, civil rights organizations, and other stakeholders supporting this approach. We received stories from people with disabilities describing their own experiences or those of friends regarding the denial of life-sustaining treatment and the difficulties involved in accessing it after such denials. We also received similar stories from providers. For example, one provider association described a 25-year-old patient with a developmental disability who had been referred to an inpatient hospice unit after becoming poorly responsive with brain imaging demonstrating a shunt and severe abnormalities. After the provider learned from a family member of a recent sudden change in the patient's behavior, the patient received a second opinion, leading to the shunt being surgically revised, the patient's condition improving, and her enjoying her life for many more years. In the words of this commenter, the patient's “referral to hospice without sufficient exploration of other treatment options was inappropriate and may have been driven by a mistaken clinical assumption regarding her baseline quality of life.”

Response: The Department will retain the provision as proposed. We respond to specific questions regarding the application of this requirement throughout this section.”

Hence, this section of the Final Rule forbids the futile care impositions that groups opposing euthanasia have fought for decades.

Moreover, we know that disabled Canadians are agreeing to be killed by “MAiD” because they aren’t getting the supports they need: not having wheelchairs, pain control, food, housing, jobs, etc. These conditions also contribute to high rates of suicide among US citizens with disabilities. Hence, the Final Rule helps prevent disabled Americans from experiencing Canada-like tragedies.

And, given that the Final Rule prohibits federal funding recipients from “from denying or limiting medical treatment based on the provider's belief that the life of a person with a disability has a lesser value than a person without a disability, or that life with a disability is not worth living,” it precludes turning disabled people’s suicides into a “medical procedure.” Think of the efforts we will have to expend against assisted suicide in the future: wouldn’t you like to use the Final Rule to fight those bills?

I urge other euthanasia opponents to do what they can to defend the Final Rule. Time is of the essence, because many of the regulations in the Final Rule are supposed to take effect this month and federal officials have already eliminated or delayed some of them. For instance, officials have rescinded new provisions requiring adequate staffing in nursing homes. New rules about internet access and home and community based services have also been paused. Therefore, the aforementioned anti-death provisions could soon be paused or eliminated as well.

So, if you are someone in Washington DC who interacts with officials at HHS or the Department of Justice, make the importance of the Final Rule part of your conversations. If you live in one of the states that is bringing the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, write to your attorney general and ask them to drop it.

The Final Rule furthers compassion and dignity for disabled persons. It is also one of the USA’s most urgent anti-euthanasia issues in decades.

Author Note:

For information about how to contact your attorney general to ask them to drop the lawsuit, see this link.

To write to the US Department of Justice, go to this link.

To write to the Department of Health and Hunan Services, use this link.
For a quick explanation of what Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is, see this Drunk History video about the history of the law. 

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

Do you have an Assisted Suicide story? Contact EPC

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Life Worth Living film that features stories from people who have been affected by Canada's euthanasia law, continues to do extremely well with many groups and individuals organizing local screenings of the film.

You can purchase the film at: www.lifeworthlivingfilm.com or contact the us to purchase or to arrange a local screening of the film at: info@epcc.ca or by calling the office at: 1-877-439-3348.

For the past few months EPC has been producing an American assisted suicide film under the working title: Prescription Poison. We have completed multiple interviews throughout America with several important stories.

Jeanette Hall (picture) in 2020 was living with cancer and given 6 months to a year to live. She wanted assisted suicide. But her doctor helped her to change her mind.

Assisted suicide has now been legalized in 13 US states and one Territory (Washington DC).  Further to that, the assisted suicide lobby has expanded access to assisted suicide by removing "safeguards" in the states where it is legal. Ultimately the US assisted suicide lobby wants to follow Canada's lead by expanding the killing from assisted suicide to euthanasia while the number of assisted suicide deaths in America continues to increase every year.

We need one more personal story to pull this powerful film together.

Do have a personal assisted suicide story (Link) or do you know of an assisted suicide story?

Contact the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at info@epcc.ca or call us at: 1-877-439-3348.

How Slovenia overturned their assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Alex, Alexander, Aleš, & Wesley

On January 21, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) and EPC-USA held a strategic meeting in Washington DC.

Aleš Primc, (second from the right) was a key organizer of the referendum campaign that overturned Slovenia's assisted suicide law.

Slovenia is the first country to legalize assisted suicide and then overturn the law through a referendum. On November 23, 2025 the Slovenian people voted 53.6% to overturn the assisted suicide law.

Aleš began his presentation by thanking (Alex Schadenberg) for helping them with advice, information and direction for the successful referendum campaign in Slovenia.

Aleš Primc

This is the message that Aleš shared.

The Slovenian government held a referendum in 2024 based on the concept of legalizing euthanasia. Slovenians passed the 2024 referendum by a 55 - 45% margin.

The Slovenian government then introduced a law to legalize poisoning by assisted suicide that passed in July 2025. 

Alés formed a group to gather signatures to enable a referendum to overturn that law. They needed 40,000 signatures, which is difficult considering Slovenia has only 2 million people. 

In Slovenia they do not collect signatures in the street, the people must go to the public office to sign in support of a referendum campaign. It was very hard to collect these signatures. We had 35 days to collect signatures and it took us until the final few days to get the signatures.

The polls showed that 30% of the people were planning to support the referendum.

Interview in Slovenia.

Aleš said that when Alex Schadenberg was in Slovenia in 2024, they learned that they had to develop their own language and their own arguments in order to win the campaign. Everything needed to be new. If they would speak the language used by the other side and react to their talking points they would not win the referendum.

The poison lobby framework was designed to manipulate people. They decided to go a different direction.

Aleš first wanted to say that they considered their victory to be a miracle.

It was important that they got all of the opposition political parties on their side as this legislation was pushed by the government. The opposition parties had political reason to support the campaign. Political parties have local structures that enabled them to collect the signatures and get out the vote.

It was important that the Churches recognized this referendum as their referendum. Not all of the Churches joined the campaign in the beginning, but once they got going they all joined.

It was important that the medical associations supported the campaign. These organizations didn't want to be involved directly with the campaign but it was very important that they were on our side. These groups didn't like that we used strong language and they wanted to use "nice" words, but they were on our side.

Most doctors do not want to participate in the "dirty job" of killing and they recognized that if some doctors participate that it would change medicine for everyone. They saw it as a law that created new obligations that were directly opposed to their professional ethics. If they didn't get them involved they may have only fought for conscientious objection, but they may have done very little.

When the referendum was approved, the structures within the medical association began to move on the issue.

At the same time, all of the Churches in Slovenia made a common statement supporting the referendum. This was important because it created a common position but it also changed the media response since the media will often attack the Catholic Church, but they couldn't because every christian and non-christian religious group supported the referendum.

The common statement made every religious group decide that this referendum was their referendum. As the referendum day approached more and more religious groups directly participated in the get-out-the vote campaign. It was incredible to see all of these groups becoming directly involved.

Another outcome of the common statement was that every religious group organized their own prayer.

Another development was the reaction of Croatians who viewed the referendum as their referendum because they knew that if Slovenia legally poisoned their citizens then Croatia would likely be next. Croatia is directly south of Slovenia.

The referendum became a common battle for all groups and we cooperated with them.

Language.

They decided to not use any words that are used by their opponents. They decided to do everything that is possible to win. They were not battling an idea, they were battling to win.

To win, they decided that they would only use their language. They never used the name of the law. The name of the law was designed to sell the law. They noticed in other countries, that groups will refer to legislation by it's name -- voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide. They would have lost if they used the actual name.

Aleš always stated that this was the law that allows poisoning of the people. They decided that they would speak about poisoning people.

They asked - What is the intention of the poisoning lobby? The opposition frightened Slovenians by telling them that they would suffer. They wanted everyone to fear the last days of their life. They succeeded in their message through years of brainwashing people during the government debates.

Nobody in Slovenia, or the western world, wants to suffer. Fair enough, but the opposition message was ridiculous. So they decided to not speak about suffering. They did not speak about suffering because people were already brainwashed to fear death.

They did not speak about euthanasia or assisted suicide but poisoning.

When speaking about poisoning they did not need to speak about the difference between euthanasia and assisted suicide because both involved poisoning. Speaking about prescribing or injecting doesn't help, with poisoning there is no difference. The person dies from being poisoned.

This law was about poisoning people and those who were promoting the law were the poisoning lobby. The intention of the law was to poison people. The law therefore established a framework whereby people could be poisoned.

It is a hard language and at first some people were hesitant to use this language. The Church and the doctors groups didn't use this language, but as the leader of the campaign it was important for Aleš to use this language.

The opposition were angry and almost terrified by the language. They constantly repeated that this is not poisoning. When they were doing interviews they spoke about this not being poisoning and  Aleš explained why it is poisoning, therefore they were speaking about poisoning.

They then stated that this is the pension, healthcare and social reform law. They stated that dead people don't need money from the government. Dead people don't need a pension, they don't need healthcare and they don't need social care.

When you are elderly and have an illness, the cheapest way for the government is to poison you.

In Slovenia they have socialized healthcare, but it is not a very good system. In Slovenia it will sometimes take two to four years to see a specialist. But the law called poisoning a healthcare right. 

The law allowed people to by poisoned to death in 20 days while people have to wait sometimes two to four years to see a specialist, but you can be poisoned to death in 20 days. They called this the government healthcare, pension and social reform law. People knew that this was true.

The government published a calculation of the cost to kill people by poisoning and the cost to provide healthcare, social services and pensions for people.

The government calculated that each poisoning will cost 3,000 to 5,000 euro but healthcare, social services and pension may cost 20,000 to 40,000 euro per month. They argued that this was why the government had legalized poisoning.

The group asked who gets the money that is saved from all the dead people? The government gets the money that iss saved from the people being poisoned to death.

Slovenians understood that if this law was not overturned that their lives were at risk. When Slovenians are sick they want to go to the doctor for healthcare not poisoning.

Slovenians said, I paid all of my life into the pension and healthcare system and never used anything and now when I'm older and would need healthcare or need a pension, after paying 30 - 40 years into the system, they will offer to kill me.

They succeeded in turning around the conversation.

When they had TV debates on the referendum the poisoning lobby said that it is not poisoning and they were lying. But they didn't speak about their talking points, they spoke about poisoning. It was important that they stuck to their talking points, even though the poisoning lobby tried to make them speak about other things.

They only had a few key talking points and they stuck to them. It is not easy on a TV show or debate to stick to your talking points but you have to do it. As soon as you start talking about their talking points you will not win.

Since Slovenia was not the first country to legalize therefore they didn't need to imagine what would happen. They presented actual evidence of what is happening in other countries, such as Canada.

It was very helpful that Alex Schadenberg regularly sent information and helped them during the campaign. The arguments and information was very important for them because if they didn't have information the other side could claim whatever they wanted, but they were able to use actual information and prove it.

Because of the regular information that they received, they led the "International" arguments campaign about what is happening in countries that have legalized.

They responded by saying, don't tell us that all of these things will not happen because this is what is happening, not only in one country, but also in the other countries that have legalized it. It was not that it may happen, but that it is happening right now.

It is important that you have real arguments not just potential arguments about imagined scenario's. They were careful to use actual facts.

Their arguments may seem simple but it was not easy to stick to their talking points because the media tried to pull them away from their talking points. It was very important to stick to the plan.

In Slovenia they proved that it was a good decision to stick to their talking points all of the time. They didn't let the poisoning lobby pull them away from their campaign.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition works to Protect Your Life.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) offers several ways to protect you from euthanasia and assisted suicide.

EPC asks you to share your personal stories related to euthanasia or assisted suicide. Many people have family or friends who died by euthanasia or assisted suicide under questionable circumstances. By sharing your story, you open the door to other people sharing their story.

1. The Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care will protect you when you cannot make medical or personal care decisions for yourself.

This legal document enables you to appoint someone you trust to be your Power of Attorney for Personal Care (language differs based on jurisdiction). This document makes clear statements about euthanasia, assisted suicide and medical treatment options and guides medical practitioners and the person you have appointed to make medical and personal care decisions that protect your life, when you are unable to make decisions for yourself.

The Life Protecting Power of Attorney uses a basic format that is legal within most jurisdictions and also has available specific formats for jurisdictions with special requirements.

Canadians purchase the Life-Protecting Power of Attorney from EPC for $10 + taxes. 

Americans purchase US State versions from EPC-USA for $15  (Purchase link) or contact EPC at: 1-877-439-3348 or info@epcc.ca.

2. EPC suggests that you write a straight forward letter to your physician explaining that you oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide and have that letter added to your medical file.

3. The Do Not Kill Me wallet card is available from EPC upon request or with a donation. The card provides further protection when sign and date, with a witness, on the back of the card.

EPC will send you Do Not Kill Me wallet cards by contacting us by email: info@epcc.ca. or at: 1-877-439-3348. 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition yearly friendship fee is $30 (individual) or $50 (group). Pay for your friendship online.

 

Donations can be made to EPC by (Online Donation Link) or (Paypal Donation Link) or send E-transfer donations to:  info@epcc.ca or call the EPC office at: 1-877-439-3348.

EPC works with the Compassionate Community Care charity (CCC) that offers practical advice and information for people when they or a loved one has questions related to medical treatment options or are concerned that a loved one is considering or being pressured to be killed by euthanasia or assisted suicide.

CCC developed a community based Visitor Training Program to provide training for you to visit people who are lonely and isolated. CCC also developed an Advocacy Training Program to help you to provide medical or personal care advocacy for people you know. CCC has also established a calling service to contact people who are lonely, isolated and vulnerable. Contact CCC at: 1-855-675-8749.

Petition: The US Food and Drug Administration must investigate assisted suicide drug cocktails

To the FDA's Compounding Incidents Program, (Link to the online petition). (Link to the paper petition).

The petitioners draw your attention to the following:

Whereas the compounded drug cocktails being used for assisted suicide have had high rates of overdose, failure of expected pharmacological action, and adverse experiences associated with their use for assisted suicide; and;

Whereas the experiments that continue to be done to develop the compounded drug cocktails used for assisted suicide violate the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ regulations for the protection of human subjects under 45 CFR part 46;

Therefore, we call on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate the adverse drug experiences with the compounded drug cocktails used for assisted suicide.

(Link to the online petition). (Link to the paper petition).

Information:

Despite claims that assisted suicide is a painless death, complications with assisted suicide remain common, and in fact have increased over the last decade. The FDA’s Compounding Incidents Program aims to protect the public against poor quality compounded drugs, yet no research has been done on whether the assisted suicide cocktails currently in use meet current standards.

An article by Manuela Callari published by Medscape on March 13, 2025, asked the question, “Do We Know Enough About Assisted Dying Drugs?” (1) Claud Regnard, MD, a retired palliative medicine consultant in the UK told Medscape:

“The amount of evidence supporting the use of these drugs is astoundingly small. The last study looking at efficacy and side effects was published 25 years ago, using data from 10 years earlier. 

“You wouldn’t allow this in any way with any other sort of drugs,” Regnard said. In a 2022 study, he found that drugs used for assisted dying have not undergone the usual level of scrutiny.(2)

The pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of these drugs at high doses remain poorly understood. “We extrapolate from therapeutic doses, but we have no proper data on what happens at lethal doses,” Regnard said. “That’s not science—that’s guesswork.”

Based on the Oregon data we know that there are serious problems with the use of compounded drugs for assisted suicide. 

The 2023 Oregon Death with Dignity Act report indicated that the longest time for an assisted suicide death was 137 hours (five days plus 17 hours) and the assisted suicide complications rate was almost 10%. In Oregon, complications are only reported when a health care provider is present at the death. In 2023, there were ten known complications based on 102 reports from health care providers. (3)

Regarding the assisted suicide drug trials, JoNel Aleccia reported the following for The Seattle Times on March 5, 2017:

[Dr. Carol] Parrot and [Dr. Robert] Wood are part of a seven-member group of doctors in the Northwest who came up with the three-drug protocol after Valeant Pharmaceuticals Inc. acquired the rights to secobarbital, known as Seconal, in 2015 and raised the price sharply. 

“We wanted the new drug regime to be safe, reliable and effective—and cost $500 or less,” said Parrot.

Earlier in the article, Aleccia states,

The first Seconal alternative turned out to be too harsh, burning patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain. The second drug mix, used 67 times, has led to deaths that stretched out hours in some patients—and up to 31 hours in one case. (4)

Lisa Krieger’s article, published in Medical Xpress on September 8, 2020, also reported on the lethal drug cocktail trials:

A little-known secret, not publicized by advocates of aid-in-dying, was that while most deaths were speedy, others were very slow. Some patients lingered for six or nine hours; a few, more than three days. No one knew why, or what needed to change. 

“The public thinks that you take a pill and you’re done,” said Dr. Gary Pasternak, chief medical officer of Mission Hospice in San Mateo. “But it’s more complicated than that.” (5)

Doctors who participate in assisted suicide developed lethal compounded drug cocktails with human trials. The developers were concerned with the lethal efficacy and cost of the drug cocktail as opposed to the negative consequences associated with its use. The assisted suicide drug cocktail trials appear to have violated the Nuremburg Code.

We, the petitioners, call on the FDA to perform an investigation into the use of compounded drug cocktails used for assisted suicide based on the high rates of adverse experiences and into the experiments done to develop the assisted suicide drug cocktails that appear to have violated 45 CFR part 46.

References:

1. Manuela Callari, “Do We Know Enough About Assisted Dying Drugs?” Medscape, March 13, 2025 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/do-we-know-enough-about-assisted-dying-drugs-2025a100064q?form=fpf, accessed June 16, 2025.
2. Worthington, A., Finlay, I., and Regnard C. (March 10, 2022). Efficacy and safety of drugs used for ‘assisted dying’ British Medical Bulletin. 142:15-22. https://doi.org/10.1093/bmb/idac009
3. Oregon Death with Dignity Act 2023 report https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/PROVIDERPARTNERRESOURCES/EVALUATIONRESEARCH/DEATHWITHDIGNITYACT/Documents/year26.pdf, accessed June 16, 2025.
4. JoNel Aleccia, “Northwest doctors rethink aid-in-dying drugs to avoid prolonged deaths,” The Seattle Times, October 5, 2017, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/northwest-doctors-rethink-aid-in-dying-drugs-to-avoid-prolonged-deaths/, accessed June 16, 2025.
5. Lisa Kreiger, “Doctors seek life-ending drugs that smooth the way for the terminally ill,” The Medical Express, September 8, 2020, https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-doctors-life-ending-drugs-smooth-terminally.html, accessed June 16, 2025.

The moral cowardice of Compassion & Choices.

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

Meghan is an instructor at E4 - University of Texas (Austin) and an EPC-USA board member.

Before getting to the main point of this post, I want to acknowledge the tragic passing of my colleague and friend Stephen Mendelsohn, who died instantly when he was struck by a car on June 1st. In my time with Stephen, I enjoyed hearing about his devout Jewish faith and his references to concepts like “tikkun olam,” or “repairing the world.” In addition to being a kind and honorable person, Stephen was the EPC-USA's primary researcher who kept us apprised of the assisted suicide movement’s activities across the country. The anti assisted suicide and disability rights movements are much poorer without him. I’m sorry, Stephen. May you rest in eternal peace.

Stephen Mendelsohn

One of the things I liked most about interacting with Stephen was that as a fellow autistic person, Stephen had a similarly blunt way of communicating his thoughts. It was a refreshing opportunity for camaraderie. In honor of Stephen, I won’t mince words when I talk about the ableist moral cowardice expressed in “A Patient-Directed Approach: How the U.S. Model of Medical Aid in Dying Balances Compassion with Safeguards” by upper middle class, able-bodied Compassion and Choice’s leaders Kevin Diaz and Bernadette Nunley. In the piece contrasting Canada’s “MAiD” program with their policy goals, they assert:

“This commentary does not dispute nor confirm the facts or interpretations of Canadian law referenced in the article. Instead, it highlights key aspects of the U.S. legal framework, exploring its effectiveness and the principles that distinguish it from the Canadian model. Any comparisons are intended for context and insight, not to assert superiority or to question the legitimacy of the Canadian approach.”

Ie, “Hey, everyone, murdering disabled people is a matter that we should all agree to disagree about!”

I’m sorry, no deal. I’m all for not making prejudiced judgments about, say, people who need to use EBT benefits or who immigrated from a different country, but forcing disabled people of all backgrounds to live in an environment where the government, medical system, media and members of the general populace function as death pushers is not the same thing.

The moral relativity expressed in the aforementioned essay reflects and reinforces the same callousness demonstrated by Canadian Senator Stan Kutcher during Canada’s “Track 2 MAiD” hearings, when he snidely dismissed Canadian disability rights advocates’s attempts to save disabled people’s lives as “moral panic.”

Well, suggesting “MAiD” to someone who has called a suicide hotline, as my friend “Amy” experienced, is a crime against humanity. It’s evil to subject members of a marginalized group to horrible oppression and then take that to the lowest common denominator by offering them to “choice” to be killed.

When I was helping “Amy,” I sent Amy a box of things that had helped me when I was depressed. When I mailed the box, I had the sense that I was sending humanitarian aid to someone being persecuted by a government, because I totally was.

The ethical equivocation in Diaz and Nunley’s paper is nice for them, I’m sure, as they sip cocktails at their organization’s posh lobby events. But, that kind of ethical cowardice is not nice for the disabled community.

The expedient moral relativism expressed by C&C’s leaders about Canada's Track 2 MAiD is an extreme consequence of the world’s pattern of neutrality towards systemic ableism. It’s because of this longstanding apathy towards disability justice that people support incentivizing disabled people to die by suicide in the first place. If a society routinely persecutes and dehumanizes a marginalized group, then it becomes easier for members of that society to tolerate killing members of that group.

Compassion and Choices’ leadership apparently does not comprehend how predatory it is for a person who is functionally an Angel of Death serial killer to look into the eyes of a viciously subjugated person and suggest that they let themselves be killed. And that does not reflect well on the organization’s agenda.