Media Release: Danger of Massachusetts Assisted Suicide Bill

This media release was published by Not Dead Yet on June 2, 2020.

For Immediate Release: June 2, 2020
Contact: John B. Kelly 617-952-3302, SecondThoughtsKelly@Gmail.com, @2ndThoughtsMA

Bill Legalizing Assisted Suicide Remains Dangerous, Targets the Vulnerable

Second Thoughts Massachusetts issues the following statement in opposition to the favorable report given by the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health to Bill S.1208/H.1926, legislation that would legalize assisted suicide in Massachusetts.

John Kelly

“I’m amazed and disappointed that as a deadly virus is stalking and killing older, ill, and disabled people, and systemic racism and healthcare disparities lead to disproportionate deaths of Black people, the Public Health Committee decides now would be the time to further endanger the same groups of people. Assisted suicide legislation sends a message of ‘better dead than disabled’ while completely immunizing doctors, heirs, and stressed caregivers who can encourage or even engineer a person’s death without fear of prosecution,” said Second Thoughts Director John B. Kelly.

“It is wrong to move a bill at a time when those who will be harmed are on lockdown due to COVID-19, depriving us of the opportunity to fully address in person this threat to our health and well-being,” Kelly continued.

Anita Cameron, Director of Minority Outreach for Not Dead Yet, said “I am utterly disgusted that as COVID-19 ravages the Black community due to the results of racial disparities in healthcare, the Public Health Committee has decided to try to slip this bill through. COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the Black community; we are dying at frightening rates. This bill promotes death over life, and by pushing it, the legislature is sending a clear message to us Blacks that we are burdens and should die by suicide.”

Diane Coleman, Not Dead Yet’s President and CEO, said “The doctors who decide who’s eligible for assisted suicide are the same doctors who have been perfectly comfortable putting older, ill and disabled people at the back of the line for receiving COVID-19 treatments. Why should anyone think they will move us to the front of the line for other life-saving treatments if assisted suicide is legal?”

Five months ago, Suffolk Superior court Judge Mary K. Ames in Kligler, et al. v. Healey, et al. ruled against any state constitutional right for assisted suicide, holding that at the point of a patient ingesting the lethal drugs, they would be vulnerable to improper persuasion. “In such a situation, there is a greater risk that temporary anger, depression, a misunderstanding of one’s prognosis, ignorance of alternatives, financial considerations, strain on family members or significant others, or improper persuasion may impact the decision.”

“The Massachusetts legislature should heed this warning by the court. If assisted suicide is legal, some people’s lives will be ended without their consent, through insurance denials, mistakes, and abuse. No safeguards have ever been enacted, or even proposed, that can prevent this outcome which can never be undone once it is put into effect,” Kelly concluded. Second Thoughts Massachusetts is a group of disability rights advocates opposed to the legalization of assisted suicide. We testified against the bill S.1208 at the hearing in June of 2019 and held a well-attended legislative briefing a few days after. It is the state affiliate of Not Dead Yet, the national grassroots group opposed to assisted suicide and life and death discrimination against disabled people.

The Extreme Ableism of Assisted Suicide

The following article was published by Not Dead Yet on January 28, 2020

By Diane Coleman, President & CEO Not Dead Yet

Diane Coleman

I just came across a brilliant letter that John Kelly sent to the Washington, D.C. Council when they were considering an assisted suicide bill in 2016. I should have posted it here then, but I am doing so now because it’s one of the best discussions I’ve read of the core problem that assisted suicide advocates have with disability.

Let me just highlight one example from the letter, a Washington Post quote from Dan Diaz, who is still working for Compassion and Choices, traveling around the country doing press conferences and testifying on their behalf in favor of these dangerous bills.

“If I find myself in a situation where I can’t go to the bathroom on my own, where someone has to change my diapers, where I can’t feed myself, where I can’t care for the people around me, where other people have to move me around to keep me from having bedsores, I would then submit, ‘Is that really living?’ ” Diaz said. 

Although assisted suicide proponents often accuse opponents of fearing death, the letter below demonstrates how profoundly proponents fear and loath disability. Their ableism is so extreme that they want to carve a vaguely defined segment of old, ill and disabled people out of suicide prevention, enlist our healthcare system in streamlining our path to death, and immunizing everyone involved from any legal consequences, thereby denying us the equal protection of the law.

November 1, 2016

Chairman Mendelson, Councilmembers:

John Kelly

My name is John Kelly. I am the New England Regional Director for Not Dead Yet, the national disability rights group that has long opposed euthanasia and assisted suicide. I am also the director of Not Dead Yet’s Massachusetts state affiliate, Second Thoughts MA: Disability Rights Advocates against Assisted Suicide.

I refer you to two recent articles in the Washington Post. Read together, they must lead you to vote against assisted suicide bill B21-38. Assisted suicide isn’t about physical pain at all, despite what proponents have told you. And assisted suicide benefits one specific group in the district and country, wealthier white people, while disadvantaging poorer people, and people of color specifically.

The first article came out last Monday, October 24. Titled “‘Death with dignity’ laws and the desire to control how one’s life ends,” this article exposes the main argument for assisted suicide, “that terminally ill patients have the right to die without suffering intractable pain in their final days or weeks,” as a big lie.

Author Liz Szabo reports that assisted suicide proponent group Compassion & Choices “focuses heavily on the need to relieve dying patients of pain.” One ad has the assisted suicide bill giving “a dying person the option to avoid the worst pain and suffering at the end of life.”

Yet the latest research shows that terminally ill patients who seek aid in dying aren’t primarily concerned about pain. Those who have actually used these laws have been far more concerned about controlling the way they exit the world than about controlling pain.

As one California doctor said, “It’s almost never about pain. It’s about dignity and control.”

And that’s what the Oregon and Washington data show. Pain is the least of people’s concerns. Doctors report people requesting the lethal drugs because of psychosocial suffering about becoming disabled through their illness. It’s mental distress about becoming dependent on other people (“losing autonomy” 92%), losing abilities (“less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable” 90%), shame and perceived/actual loss of social status (“loss of dignity” 79%), needing help with incontinence (“losing control of bodily functions” 48%), and believing that suicide would leave loved ones better off (“burden on family, friends/caregivers” 41%).

Dr. Ira Byock, a leading palliative care expert, told the Post, “it’s a bait and switch. We’re actually helping people hasten their deaths because of existential suffering. That’s chilling to me.” As Byock said, almost all pain is controllable. Hospice staff are on call 24 hours a day, and caregivers can be trained in administering emergency pain medication until staff arrive.

The real reasons that people want to commit assisted suicide, proponents admit, are about being dependent on other people for personal care. We disability rights activists have been pointing this out all along.

Barbara Coombs Lee, who as an insurance company executive wrote Oregon’s assisted suicide law, brought up the case of the woman who committed assisted suicide because she was incontinent. The woman wrote that “the idea of having somebody take care of me like I am a little 2-month-old baby is just absolutely repulsive. It’s more painful than any of the pain from the cancer.”

Lee described scenarios of disability that she said were “worse than death.” Proponent Dan Diaz emphasized the supposed horrors of disability.

“If I find myself in a situation where I can’t go to the bathroom on my own, where someone has to change my diapers, where I can’t feed myself, where I can’t care for the people around me, where other people have to move me around to keep me from having bedsores, I would then submit, ‘Is that really living?’

This isn’t a public health bill, it’s a death before disability bill.

So this is what some of you are planning to vote for. You are not protecting DC residents from agonizing pain. You are promoting the particular views of one specific group of people, described by Obamacare architect Ezekiel Emanuel as predominantly “white, well-insured, and college-educated.” People who are used to being in control of every aspect of their lives.

So, like so much in the US, assisted suicide is an issue that cuts across class and race. The 2012 election map in Massachusetts shows that wealthier, whiter areas voted heavily for legalization, while working-class whites and people of color voted strongly against. People turning out for Barack Obama and current Sen. Elizabeth Warren defeated the proposal.

The second article, from October 17, by reporter of color Fenit Nirappil, was titled “Right-to-die law faces skepticism in nation’s capital: ‘it’s really aimed at old black people.’” It details the opposition to assisted suicide of Washington’s black majority.

Many in the black community distrust the health-care system and fear that racism in life will translate into discrimination in death, said Patricia King, a Georgetown Law School professor who has written about the racial dynamics of assisted death.

“Historically, African Americans have not had a lot of control over their bodies, and I don’t think offering them assisted suicide is going to make them feel more autonomous,” King said.

District residents told Nirappil of concerns that “low-income black senior citizens may be steered to an early death”, and that in the end, assisted suicide is really all about reducing government healthcare costs.

Derek Humphry, who founded the Hemlock Society (Compassion & Choices’ original name), wrote years ago of the “unspoken argument,” that assisted suicide will gain traction because of “the realities of the increasing cost of health care in an aging society, because in the final analysis, economics, not the quest for broadened individual liberties or increased autonomy, will drive assisted suicide to the plateau of acceptable practice.”

Assisted suicide, like suicide in general, is primarily practiced and promoted by white people. Nirappil reported that national leaders in the assisted suicide movement are all white, and that most of the participants at a recent rally were white. In the 18 year history of the Oregon assisted suicide law, only one black person has used the program. In a state that is now 22% nonwhite, 97% of assisted suicide deaths have been white.

Non-Hispanic whites also commit regular suicide at a rate 2.5 times that of blacks. Rather than importing a predominantly-white practice as a solution for the district, you must say no to this bill and the big lie it hides behind. Assisted suicide is not about protecting suffering people from physical pain, it’s about satisfying the control needs of a group of people, predominantly white, who would rather die than become dependent on another human being.

Please respect your constituents, understand the danger this bill represents, and reject this bill. Thank you.

Disability rights leaders praise Massachusetts court decision that there is no right to assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

*Massachusetts Court explains why assisted suicide should be prohibited (Link).

John Kelly, Second Thoughts

Disability rights leaders praised the Massachusetts court decision that there is no right to assisted suicide. The assisted suicide lobby doctors have decided to appeal the decision. 

The Second Thoughts Massachusetts media release stated:

Second Thoughts Massachusetts praises the decision by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Mary K. Ames rejecting a right to physician-assisted suicide in the state. She ruled that any Massachusetts doctor who prescribes a lethal dosage of drugs could be subject to prosecution for involuntary manslaughter. 

Second Thoughts director John B. Kelly said, “we are gratified that the court reaffirmed the law against assisted suicide, and referred the matter to the legislature where lawmaking belongs. Disability rights advocates will continue to press the legislature that assisted suicide is just too dangerous.” 

Judge Ames wrote that at the point of a patient ingesting the lethal drugs, they would be vulnerable to improper persuasion. “In such a situation, there is a greater risk that temporary anger, depression, a misunderstanding of one’s prognosis, ignorance of alternatives, financial considerations, strain on family members or significant others, or improper persuasion may impact the decision.” 

Ruthie Poole is president of the board of MPOWER, a group of people with lived experience of mental health diagnosis, trauma, and addiction. Poole said, “Personally, as someone who has been suicidal in the past, I can relate to the desire for ‘a painless and easy way out.’ However, depression is treatable and reversible. Suicide is not. The current bill in the legislature pretends otherwise.”

The Cape Cod Times reported that the assisted suicide doctors, who brought the case to the Massachusetts court, are appealing the decision. The report stated:

“We’re disappointed that the court didn’t rule in our favor,” Kligler said. “We’re hoping that the appellate court or Supreme Judicial Court will.”

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) emphasized that the Massachusetts court decision is not the only court decision stating that there is no right to assisted suicide. EPC hopes that this decision will prevent the legalization of assisted suicide in Massachusetts.

Connecticut man charged with manslaughter in supposed "assisted suicide" of his wife

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A

Kevin Connors

Connecticut man has been charged with manslaughter in the death of his wife, in a case that has being referred to as assisted suicide.

Samara Abramson reporting for Fox news  stated that Kevin Connors told police that he held the gun to his wife's head as she pulled the trigger. This is being referred to as an assisted suicide case because Lori Connors had late stage ovarian cancer and Lyme disease and allegedly pulled the trigger. 

The Associated Press reported that:

The 65-year-old retired prison guard initially told police he had been woken up by the sound of a gunshot, but later admitted he helped 61-year-old Lori Conners hold a gun to her head while she pulled the trigger in their bed on Sept. 6, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Conners said he couldn't watch his wife suffer any more.

CNN news reporter Lauren del Valle quoted Connors lawyer, Raymond Rigat as stating:

"Mr. Conners did what any loving husband would do,"

Cathy Ludlum

Cathy Ludlum from the disability rights group Second Thoughts Connecticut told Abramson from Fox news:

“If you don’t have encouragement and support around you, it’s easy to give up”

Manslaughter is the correct charge in this case. Whether Connors was a "loving" husband or not, it is not a loving act to kill or assist to kill your spouse, parent or child.

Society needs to care for people, by killing the pain not the patient.

Great News: Connecticut rejects assisted suicide again.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

It is great news that Connecticut once again defeated the assisted suicide bill.

Cathy Ludlum, Second Thoughts

There are many people who have worked for many years to continue defeating assisted suicide in Connecticut. A special "shout out" goes to the efforts of the Second Thoughts Connecticut disability rights group.

*Cathy Ludlum: We will be the collateral damage of assisted suicide.

It is unlikely that assisted suicide bill has a chance at passing in the legislative session next year. State Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, a co-chair of the Public Health committee told Jenna Carlesso from the CTMirror:

“strongly held” religious beliefs among lawmakers, coupled with concerns from people with disabilities, prevented the bill from advancing to the House floor.

The bill’s chances of success next year also are low, Steinberg said, since several members are holding firm in their opposition.

“Modifying the bill in and of itself would not necessarily change any votes. So I think we would probably be looking to a new legislature,” he said.

Elaine Kolb with Second Thoughts

Nicole Leonard, reporting for WNRP, interviewed Elaine Kolb from the disability rights group Second Thoughts.

Elaine Kolb, of West Haven, testified last month against the bill as an activist for disability rights and a member of Second Thoughts Connecticut, a grassroots organization that views aid-in-dying as assisted suicide.

She spoke on how the legislation could pose a danger to people with disabilities. Specifically, Kolb said patients and medical professionals may be quick to refer to aid-in-dying without acknowledging what someone with a disability is still capable of doing.

Leonard reported that Kolb intends to remain involved with Second Thoughts and opposing assisted suicide for the rest of her life.

Thank you to everyone who continue to commit to opposing assisted suicide. Unlike the assisted suicide lobby, our leaders are volunteers.

Massachusetts Court case seeks to legalize assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Masslive published a report by Shira Schoenberg concerning the court case that has been launched to overturn the Massachusetts assisted suicide law. According to Schoenberg, Roger Kligler, who is living with cancer, and Dr. Alan Steinbach launched a lawsuit to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Massachusetts.

This is not the first time similar lawsuits have been filed. There have been several lawsuits that were simply dismissed by the court, while others were heard with the finding that there is no right to assisted suicide.

The Baxter case in Montana didn't legalize assisted suicide but the Montana Supreme Court created a "defense of consent" for Montana physicians and an activist judge in New Mexico found a right to assisted suicide in that state, but her decision was overturned by the New Mexico Supreme Court.

Schoenberg reported that Kligler and Steinbach asked the court to overturn the Massachusetts assisted suicide law:

Kligler and Alan Steinbach, a doctor who wants to write lethal prescriptions for terminally ill patients, have sued Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, arguing that criminal prosecution of a doctor for prescribing a lethal dose of medication to a competent, terminally ill patient is illegal under the state constitution. Today, a Massachusetts doctor who prescribes a lethal dose of medication could be charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Schoenberg reported that the Massachusetts Attorney General believes that the issue of assisted suicide is properly a legislative decision. The article reported:

Assistant Attorney General Robert Quinan said Healey has not taken a position on whether physician-assisted suicide is good or bad policy. But, he said, it is not for Healey — or the court — to decide. The plaintiffs, he said, want “to resolve through litigation a policy dispute that’s properly reserved for the Legislature.”

Nancy Houghton and John Kelly

Disability rights activists, John Kelly from the disability right group Second Thoughts and Nancy Houghton from the disability rights group ADAPT told Schoenberg in the interview:

“There’s no safeguard in place or possible that could prevent the loss of lives due to misdiagnosis, insurer treatment denial, depression and coercion and other forms of abuse,” said John Kelly, director of Second Thoughts Massachusetts, a group of disability rights advocates who oppose assisted suicide. 

Nancy Houghton, who is on the board of the Massachusetts chapter of the disability rights group ADAPT, said she was told she had three to five years to live when she was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease. That was 15 years ago.

“If I had listened to the doctors back then, I could be dead now,” she said.

There is no right to assisted suicide in the US or Massachusetts. Legalizing assisted suicide gives doctors the right in law to be involved with killing their patients.

Cathy Ludlum: “We will be the collateral damage” of assisted suicide

This article was published by Not Dead Yet on March 28, 2019.

Cathy Ludlum, from the disability rights group, Second Thoughts Connecticut, provided this powerful testimony to the Connecticut Public Health Committee on March 18, 2019 opposing assisted suicide bill HB 5898.

Senator Abrams, Rep. Steinberg, and members of the Public Health Committee:

Cathy Ludlum from Second Thoughts Connecticut.

My name is Cathy Ludlum, and I am one of the leaders of Second Thoughts Connecticut, a group of people with disabilities and allies who are working to prevent the legalization of assisted suicide. I am here to oppose HB 5898.

Let me start by explaining why the disability community is working so hard across the country to stop legislation of this type.

Nobody wants people to be in pain, desperate, and feeling that they have no control over what is happening in their lives. Believe me, those of us with disabilities know what it is to feel like you have no control.

But the harsh reality is that we will be the collateral damage in any formalized death-by-choice system. Many of us with severe and obvious disabilities are already too frequently thought of by medical practitioners as having reached a final stage, where death might be expected in the near future.

If we go to the hospital, we bring friends. We have to.

This will be even more true now that the Connecticut State Medical Society has dropped its opposition to assisted suicide. The last thing we need is for practitioners to have in the back of their minds, “Maybe it’s time for ‘Aid in Dying.’” If the CSMS will not advocate for good medical practice, who will?

It is reasonable to ask why a disabled person would choose a doctor who does not seem willing to fight for his or her life and health. Unfortunately, people are not always in a position to choose their own doctor. Private insurance often requires that the patient see a doctor in their network, or pay for the privilege of going out-of-network. Not every physician accepts Medicare or Medicaid, so again, choices can be limited.

Further, if a person lands in the hospital, he or she will be treated by doctors unfamiliar with the individual’s situation. This is what happened to my colleague, William Peace. He was hospitalized with a deep and grossly infected pressure sore. As a paraplegic, both his life and his quality of life were in serious jeopardy. A doctor spoke to him about devastation he would face as a result of this pressure sore: loss of job, bankruptcy, at least six months and probably more than a year in bed, and complete dependence on others, most likely in a nursing home. The doctor offered Bill the choice of refusing antibiotics, promising to make him “comfortable.” Bill refused. Many of those terrible things did happen, but eventually Bill recovered and resumed his life as a college professor. Assisted suicide was not an option in that state at that time, but the story demonstrates that the doctor believed Bill would be better off dead. 1

Any physician will tell you that medical science is inexact, at best. Sometimes predictions are slightly off, but sometimes they are off by decades. Look at the case of John Norton, a member of Second Thoughts Massachusetts. He was diagnosed with ALS when he was 18 years old. The diagnosis was verified by the prestigious Mayo Clinic. For some reason the progression of his disability stopped, and he was 74 when he submitted testimony to a Canadian court in opposition to assisted suicide. By then, he had a wife and children, and was retired from a successful career. Yet he testified that if assisted suicide was available in the 1950s, he would have taken advantage of it. Think of all he would have missed based on what was a reasonable prognosis for his condition. 2

We can spend time talking about problems with the proposed legislation.

• Believe it or not, I would qualify as terminal under the definition given in Section 1, 19: 

“Terminal illness” means the final stage of an incurable and irreversible medical condition that an attending physician anticipates, within reasonable medical judgment, will produce a patient’s death within six months. 

Nowhere does it say “with or without treatment.” Most people assume this legislation is for people who have exhausted all their treatment options, but that is not what it says. I eat with a feeding tube and use respiratory support when I am sleeping. Without these treatments, I would not last six months. I would probably not last six days. What is to prevent someone like me from showing up at a doctor’s office and saying, “I have had enough. I will be stopping all my treatment”? While the typical population would receive suicide prevention services at that point, this person would be more likely to get compassionate nods of approval. 3 

• “Competent” is defined as allowing a third party to speak for a patient with a communication disability if that person claims to be “familiar with a patient’s manner of communicating.” What is to protect a patient with very difficult communication from having an exhausted caregiver misrepresent his or her wishes? 

• The proposed legislation says the prescription “may” be self-administered, not that it “shall be.” There is no language preventing another person from administering the prescription.

Unfortunately, adjusting the legislative language does not help. Proponents say that with adequate safeguards, no one is at risk. But in reality, no package of safeguards has ever or CAN ever be developed that will provide 100% protection from misdiagnosis, incorrect prognosis, coercion, or the devaluation of the lives of disabled people.

Finally, proponents’ repeated statements that there have been no problems with the Oregon and Washington State assisted suicide systems are false. There may be times when everything goes the way it is supposed to, but with over 1500 people dying under the law, it is hard for me to believe that no one died under questionable circumstances.

Even Dr. Katrina Hedberg of the Oregon Department of Human Services (who is a supporter of the state’s Death with Dignity law) said, “We are not given the resources to investigate [assisted-suicide cases] and not only do we not have the resources to do it, but we do not have any legal authority to insert ourselves.” Those words may be comforting to people whose want total privacy, but they send chills up my spine. We as a society cannot just set this in motion without any mechanism to protect people who will inevitably be taken advantage of. Privacy is certainly important, but so is balance, and there is no balance in this legislation.

The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund has written a report showing that the safeguards in the Oregon and Washington State laws have not always been effective, and that assisted suicide does not always result in a peaceful death. 4

Is it acceptable for some lives to be shortened because people are acting on a wrong prognosis, or because they are pressured into making this final move, so that others can exercise what they see as a personal right? The last thing my colleagues and I want is to interfere with anyone’s choice. But when this choice becomes legislation that poses a direct threat to us and to others in our network, we must emphatically say NO.

Even if you support this legislation in concept, there is just no way to avoid having some people die for the wrong reasons.

HB 5898 is bad medicine, bad for people, and bad public policy. Please stop it from moving forward.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sources:
1 William J. Peace, “Comfort Care as Denial of Personhood” http://infiniteability.yolasite.com/resources/Hastings%20report_Peace.pdf

2 John Norton, “Affidavit in Opposition to Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia” http://www.massagainstassistedsuicide.org/2012/09/john-norton-cautionary-tale.html

3 Carol J. Gill, PhD, “Suicide Intervention for People with Disabilities: A Lesson in Inequality” https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/196b/2ab9f5a29e2e41e7958d35c055a26d5f4386.pdf

4 The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, “Some Oregon and Washington State Assisted Suicide Abuses and Complications” https://dredf.org/public-policy/assisted-suicide/some-oregon-assisted-suicide-abuses-and- complications/

Connecticut disability rights leader opposes assisted suicide bill.

The following is a shortened version of the letter published on March 18 in the CTMirror by Lisa Blumberg, an attorney and freelance writer, is a member of the bipartisan disability advocacy Second Thoughts Connecticut. Lisa wrote:

Let’s not be confused by double speak. The bill (HB 5898) that the Connecticut legislature is poised to consider has nothing to do with “aid in dying.” Aid in dying is palliative care to improve the quality of a person’s remaining life. The World Health Organization views such care as a human right. The bill would not expand desperately needed access to palliative care or expand patient autonomy – patients already have the right to refuse any type of treatment. Instead, the bill concerns the authority of doctors. It sets forth the circumstances under which a doctor could actively prescribe lethal drugs to directly cause the death of a supposedly willing patient without fear of liability.

If the selective writing of lethal prescriptions was a valid medical practice, as proponents assert that is, there would be no reason for laws to immunize medical professionals from suffering any consequences from doing so. What is being proposed in HB 5898 would amount to a radical change in medical culture. Causing death could be viewed as an option in the “care” of some patients.

Legalized assisted suicide could be used for-profit entities for their own purposes. There have been cases in Oregon of insurers denying payments for new treatments but offering to pay for lethal drugs. This is an issue that is totally ignored by HB 5898.

Proponents talk of “safeguards.” Nothing can prevent an erroneous prognosis or keep a vulnerable person from subtly being steered. Moreover, the bill’s focus is on the parameters of permissible medical behavior and not on patient protection. Thus, the minimal criteria written into the bill apply only to the prescribing of the lethal drugs, and not to their use. Any mental health evaluation to determine if a person has impaired decision capacity is made when he requests the drugs.

There is no requirement that a person be evaluated just prior to taking the drugs although mental state can fluctuate widely based on physical factors like oxygen level. It is conceivable that a person could take the drugs during a temporary depression or on impulse. Drugs are to be self-administered but there is no mechanism for insuring that will always be the case. It would be very easy for mistakes or abuse to occur and never be discovered.

It is deceptive to think that the main opposition to HB 5898 is faith based. The strongest opposition — the opposition with the most street cred -– are disability groups who represent people who have also been seen as hopeless in medical settings. We oppose legalizing assisted suicide on public policy grounds. With society and healthcare system as it presently is, it would be inherently dangerous to pass HB 5898.

Second Thoughts is an active disability rights organization in Connecticut.

John Kelly: Massachusetts Legislature Should Reject Assisted Suicide. People lose their lives to misdiagnosis, coercion. abuse and depression.

This article was published by the Worcester Telegram on December 24, 2018.

John Kelly

By John Kelly director of the disability rights group - Second Thoughts Massachusetts

In a recent Wicked Local Lexington commentary (“Medical aid in dying important for some with disabilities,” Sept. 28), Michael Martignetti argues for the legalization of assisted suicide from the perspective of someone with the progressive neurological disability, Friedrichs ataxia. I can relate to the author’s disability experience, as 35 years ago a spinal cord injury left me paralyzed from the neck down. Like Martignetti’s, my disability will present challenges as I age.

But whereas Martignetti frames assisted suicide as a personal choice in the face of “unbearable suffering,” I see a state-run program that will result in people losing their lives to misdiagnosis, treatment denial, and coercion/abuse, and depression. Not all families are united in loving and supporting us.

Doctors often make diagnostic mistakes: between 12 percent to 15 percent of people admitted to hospice as “terminally ill” outlive the six-month prediction. Many more who never enter hospice also outlive their diagnosis. For example, the late Senator Ted Kennedy lived a full year longer than his diagnosis of 2 to 4 months, while Florence resident John Norton credits 60 years of good life to the unavailability of assisted suicide after a mistaken prognosis.

Late last year, the Oregon Health Authority explained that people can become “terminally ill” through insurance denial and unaffordability. For example, Nevada Dr. Brian Callister had two patients denied by California and Oregon insurers for what used to be routine, lifesaving, operations. The insurers only offered the “choice” of hospice or assisted suicide. It’s impossible to talk about individual choice when profit-maximizing companies can – with no accountability – make you terminal.

The Health Authority admits its involvement ends with the dispensing of the drugs by the pharmacy. Of the many reported abuses, see the cases of Thomas Middleton (financial abuse), Wendy Melcher (attempted murder of a trans woman), and Kathryn Judson (physician pressure).

The bill requires no independent witness at the death, so the supposed safeguard of “self-administration” is empty. Especially vulnerable will be the 10 percent of Massachusetts seniors estimated to be abused yearly. A caregiver or heir to an estate can witness a person’s request, pick up the prescription, and then administer the lethal dose without worry of investigation — the bill immunizes everyone involved.

Another safeguard requires applicants to be evaluated by a mental health professional, who in a one-time meeting is tasked with “determining that the patient is capable and not suffering from a psychiatric or psychological disorder or depression causing impaired judgment.” A survey of psychiatrist revealed that most said they could not diagnose depression in a single visit. Meanwhile, “impairing judgment” is what depression does. As peer advocate Ruthie Poole has testified,

“Depression does not cause black and white thinking; it causes black and blacker thinking. Absolute hopelessness and seeing no way out are common feelings for those of us who have experienced severe depression. Personally, as someone who has been suicidal in the past, I can relate to the desire for ‘a painless and easy way out.’ However, depression is treatable and reversible. Suicide is not.”

Martignetti insists that disability does not make people eligible, but the Oregon reports show that the 5 leading “end-of-life concerns” are not pain-related but the “existential distress” (New England Journal of Medicine) experienced through “loss of autonomy” (91%), lost abilities (90%), “loss of dignity” (76%), incontinence (46%), and feeling like a burden (44%).

Indeed, I have found that social prejudice and discrimination are far more injurious than the actual loss of abilities. People have told me to my face that they would rather be dead than like me, while the culture promotes a theme of “better dead than disabled.” Movie examples include “Me Before You,” “Whose Life Is It Anyway,” and “Million Dollar Baby.”

This helps explain why every major national disability rights organization that has taken a position on assisted suicide has come out in opposition.

The legislature should continue rejecting a bill that trades on disability prejudice to push vulnerable people toward early deaths.

John B. Kelly is director of Second Thoughts Massachusetts: Disability Rights Activists Against Assisted Suicide, a grassroots group opposing assisted suicide since 2011.

Cathy Ludlum: Assisted suicide does not increase personal choice

Cathy Ludlum, a leader of the disability right group Second Thoughts Connecticut wrote an excellent letter that was published by the Hartford Courant on December 20, 2018.

Cathy Ludlum

Ludlum is responding to an article suggesting that only religious people oppose assisted suicide. Ludlum states: 

There are many reasons to oppose assisted suicide, and most of them have nothing to do with religion.

The repeated defeat of these proposals came about because members of the disability and medical communities approached legislators with practical concerns. These include the likelihood of abuse or coercion, misdiagnosis or wrong diagnosis. There is also clear evidence that wherever assisted suicide becomes law, it gets harder for patients to receive life-saving procedures -- because death will always be the most cost-effective treatment.

Perpetuating the stereotype that most opposition comes from the religious community not only does a disservice to all of us who have spent years fighting assisted suicide. It distorts the issue.

Instead, we should be educating the public about the many ways assisted suicide does not increase personal choice. Quite the contrary.

Second Thoughts Connecticut is a grassroots disability rights organization.

Case for 'death with dignity' collapses under scrutiny

This letter was written by John Kelly and published in the Berkshire Eagle on September 19.

John Kelly is director of Second Thoughts Massachusetts: Disability Rights Activists Against Assisted Suicide.

John Kelly - Second Thoughts Massachusetts

To the editor:

I write to respond to the oped by John Berkowitz and three Western Massachusetts legislators in support of assisted suicide bill H.1994 (Eagle, Sept. 11).

Unsolvable problems with assisted suicide include the fact that terminal diagnoses are often wrong. Studies show that between 13 percent and 20 percent of people so diagnosed are not dying, and may live years or even decades longer. As examples, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy lived a full year longer than his terminal diagnosis of two to four months, while Florence resident John Norton credits the unavailability of assisted suicide for decades of good life after a mistaken prognosis.

Assisted suicide is a boon to insurance companies, as it instantly becomes the cheapest "treatment." (Search for stories of Californian Stephanie Parker and Nevada doctor Brian Callister.)

Against the writers' claim that there hasn't been one documented case of abuse, I encourage readers to search for Oregonians Thomas Middleton (financial abuse), Wendy Melcher (a trans woman), and Kathryn Judson (physician pressure).

The bill requires no independent witness at the death, so the supposed safeguard of "self-administration" is toothless. Especially vulnerable will be the 10 percent of Massachusetts seniors estimated to be abused every year, almost always by family members. A caregiver or heir to an estate can witness a person's request, pick up the prescription and then administer the lethal dose without worry of investigation — the bill immunizes everyone involved.

The writers say the bill is necessary to prevent "great pain and unrelieved suffering" at the end of life, but official reports from Oregon and Washington show that the top five reasons to request assisted suicide do not include pain, but rather "existential distress" (New England Journal of Medicine) over such issues as dependence on others, loss of abilities and feeling like a burden.

We disabled people reject the prejudice that physical dependence makes our lives undignified. Assisted suicide exacerbates social class distinctions. Support is concentrated in wealthier white communities such as the Pioneer Valley, while opposition is centered in communities of color and the working class. In 2012, black and Latino voters opposed assisted suicide by more than 2 to 1, effectively defeating assisted-suicide ballot Question 2. People historically disrespected and neglected by our health care system are rightly suspicious of the power to prescribe death.

The Legislature should continue rejecting a bill that would push vulnerable people toward early deaths.

John B. Kelly,

Boston

The author is director of Second Thoughts Massachusetts: Disability Rights Activists Against Assisted Suicide.

Defeat of Connecticut assisted suicide bill linked to strong disability advocacy.

This article was published by the disability rights group, Not Dead Yet on March 26, 2018.

Cathy Ludlum: Second Thoughts Connecticut.

Great news: The Connecticut assisted suicide bill died in committee. This follows a similar victory in Massachusetts. Thanks to everyone who effectively communicated the very real dangers that a public policy legalizing assisted suicide poses to older, ill and disabled people!

On March 20, Second Thoughts Connecticut members held a press conference and testified against an assisted suicide bill, HB 5417 at a joint Public Health Committee hearing. Channel 8 covered their testimony: ‘Aid in dying’ bill back before lawmakers. They also interviewed Cathy Ludlum and Elaine Kolb. NDY also submitted written testimony.

Although the major print media ignored the outspoken opposition of the disability community, despite their consistent presence and activism against these bills as they were considered the last few years, one very powerful letter to the editor by Second Thoughts member Joan Cavanagh was carried by the New Haven Register:

Physician-assisted suicide harms the poor, elderly and disabled
Once again, a bill in Connecticut legalizing physician-assisted suicide was the subject of discussion at a public hearing on Tuesday, March 20. This year, it is HB 5417, with the Orwellian name, “An Act Concerning End-of-Life Care.” The well-funded “Compassion and Choices” and Secular Coalition of Connecticut promoters of this bill are trying to rally all “liberals” behind it under the false banner of “choice,” claiming that its only opponents are the extreme religious right and the institutional Catholic Church. As always, they deliberately refuse to acknowledge the disability rights community activists, Second Thoughts Connecticut, and the peace and justice activists who have opposed these bills for years.

Second Thoughts Connecticut has led the opposition. They don’t just “represent” people whose lives are at risk because their health care is “too expensive.” They are those people. Articulate, determined, and resourceful, they have mobilized year after year to protect their own lives and right to choose. They have also given me courage, aNnd so, from my personal experience in trying to get my elderly mother, a Medicaid patient with dementia, the care she needed to stay alive, I have written, spoken, and testified against this legislation since 2013. (The New Haven Register published my Forum piece about this (https://www.nhregister.com/opinion/article/Forum-Aid-in-dying-bill-neither-11375068.php), March 14, 2014.

We continue to clearly see these bills for what they are: another piece of the medical cost-cutting agenda that seeks to “ration” health care for the most vulnerable among us — the poor, elderly and disabled. As a life-long activist for peace and justice, it is beyond my understanding how anyone claiming human rights concerns could continue to advocate for this kind of legislation in the era of alt-right power, where the highest officials in our nation are slashing with impunity the most basic of our hard won, already inadequate, safety nets.

Joan Cavanagh
New Haven

• Second Thoughts Connecticut opposes Assisted Suicide Bill HB 5417.
• Nancy Elliott: Connecticut assisted suicide bill would legalize euthanasia.