Over its years of fighting assisted suicide, True Dignity has become acutely aware that medical care of people with disabilities is fraught with discrimination: there is a dangerous assumption, on the part of able- bodied people with power, that certain types of life are not worth living and should be brought to a quick end. Bill Peace’s article about his hospital experience … [Read more...] about The Horrifying Medical Culture into Which the Vermont Legislature Has Injected Assisted Suicide
Agism
Accepting Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Dangerously Creates a “Special Class” of Homicide, Almost Never Investigated
Much has been written about how legal assisted suicide and euthanasia (two sides of the same coin under our current US laws) dangerously affect the doctor-patient relationship. The article below, written for True Dignity by disability rights activist W. Carol Cleigh, explores the way legal assisted suicide dangerously affects law enforcement. Read this account of the Jack … [Read more...] about Accepting Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Dangerously Creates a “Special Class” of Homicide, Almost Never Investigated
Privilege vs. Disability in the Assisted Suicide Debate
Several years ago, Patient Choices, the group that, with lots of money from Compassion and Choices and the support of Governor Peter Shumlin, later succeeded in getting assisted suicide made legal in Vermont, brought George Eighmey, veteran C&C activist and "support volunteer" at the bedsides of people committing assisted suicide, , to speak in Manchester, Vermont. Many of … [Read more...] about Privilege vs. Disability in the Assisted Suicide Debate
Decisions at the End of Life: Age will have little to do with what I want, and nothing to do with what I deserve.
Written by a Compassion and Choices member whose mother committed suicide, this article is right on in pointing out the hypocrisy (practiced every day by Compassion and Choices) of trumpeting autonomy while telling the old and people with disabilities that their lives are not worth living and their medical care not worth paying for. It's well worth reading, even though we at … [Read more...] about Decisions at the End of Life: Age will have little to do with what I want, and nothing to do with what I deserve.