{"id":233464,"date":"2020-10-28T11:32:14","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T16:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=233464"},"modified":"2020-10-27T13:55:54","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T18:55:54","slug":"disability-advocates-doctors-alarm-assisted-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/disability-advocates-doctors-alarm-assisted-suicide\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Better off dead’: Disability advocates and doctors sound alarm on assisted suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Assisted suicide is growing in popularity across the United States \u2014\u00a0but even as it gains supporters, others are speaking more loudly against it. People in the disability community are fighting back, pointing out how the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia puts their lives at risk.<\/p>\n

John Kelly is the regional director for New England’s chapter of Not Dead Yet<\/a>, a disability rights organization that opposes assisted suicide. In an interview with The Independent, he explained how the support for assisted suicide, both culturally and politically, is troubling for people with disabilities. \u201cI myself am paralysed below my shoulders,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I get to see a barrage of better-dead-than-disabled messages, as carried in such by films like Me Before You, Million Dollar Baby<\/em>, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly argues that legalizing assisted suicide adds to the cultural notion that a person is better off dead than disabled because the argument in favor of it assumes that once a person no longer has autonomy, their life is not worth living. \u201cWhen we look at the reported reasons for assisted suicide out in Oregon in 2019, it’s all about autonomy,\u201d he said, citing Oregon’s 2019 assisted suicide data<\/a>. That data showed that 87% of suicidal patients reported a loss of autonomy as the main reason for wanting to die. Ninety percent reported not being able to participate in activities they enjoyed as another reason, with 72% reporting a “loss of dignity,” and 59% reporting a fear of being a burden on friends and family members as their reason for wanting to die.<\/p>\n

Note that none of these involves fear of a slow or painful death.<\/p>\n

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