<< 4.1 The Canadian Social Climate | 4.3 Voices in Manitoba: What We Learned from Focus Group and Survey Participants >>
4.2 Related International Issues

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist - or a Ph.D. economist - to understand why those of us with chronic health care needs see a public policy allowing assisted suicide as a direct threat to our lives.”

- Diane Coleman, president of “Not Dead Yet,” an American Disability Rights group.

Dave Reynolds, writer in the Inclusion Daily Express¹³, quoted Coleman as part of a report from Washington on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s decision in April of 2000 to postpone a vote on an assisted suicide bill until a hearing could be heard on the issue. The bill, according to Reynolds, would focus on improving treatment of pain through increased funding and education. It would also keep doctors from using federally controlled substances to aid a patient’s death and revoke the licenses to prescribe drugs to those who attempt to do so. The passage of the bill could be good news for disability rights activists who are opposed to physician-assisted suicide, and the right for a physician to cease life-sustaining treatment to patients deemed terminal.

Ric Burger, member of the group Not Dead Yet, wrote in the same paper 3 days later that there are a number of ways the disability rights movement is being resisted, including not only the popularization of physician-assisted suicide, but also the simultaneous cuts to funding in American health care.¹⁴

Not Dead Yet also issued a press release on May 29, 2001, concerning the starvation of a disabled man.¹⁵ Disability advocates representing several national American organizations convened at the California Supreme Court to join in opposition to the legal attempt to kill Robert Wendland through court authorized starvation. Wendland became brain-injured in 1993. After 16 months in a coma, he woke up. He operates his own wheelchair, uses a communication board, paints, and plays wheelchair bowling. His wife, however, wants his feeding tube removed so he can die of starvation. According to her, Robert “already died years ago.” As Robert’s court-appointed guardian, she claims that a new state law gives her the authority to withdraw food and water even if he expressly objects. Fortunately for Robert, his sister and mother disagree, and have protested his wife’s request. This has probably kept him alive. Nine national disability organizations and one university affiliated program filed an amicus brief in the California Supreme Court, stating that killing Robert Wendland through starvation violates his civil rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act and his right to due process under the Constitution. The Case is expected to go on to the US Supreme Court.

The Jerusalem Post ran a story January 18, 2002 concerning active euthanasia in Israeli hospitals.¹⁶ Active euthanasia would be forbidden, according to proposals by a committee of experts, but the needless suffering of the terminally ill could end through the use of legally binding “living wills,” ethics committees, respirators with timers that turn themselves off, and a computerized database in which individuals could restate their end-of-life decisions every 5 years. This committee of experts was made up of doctors, scientists, social workers, nurses, philosophers, lawyers, judges and rabbis, who prepared the bill to be presented to the Knesset.¹⁷ Committee Chairperson Avram Steinberg said “the committee decided on the middle ground between those who regard life as an absolute, despite horrible suffering, and those who value the patient’s autonomy above everything else.” Steinberg went on to add that the committee did not complete its recommendations on end-of-life decisions regarding infants and other minors or set punishment for violators, because Knesset committees would initiate their own bills if the committee did not finish its work soon.

In Switzerland, a nurse has confessed to killing 27 elderly patients. ¹⁸ The nurse acknowledged he’d been overwhelmed by caring for the people involved, and that he acted out of sympathy for the patients’ suffering. The man drugged his victims with painkillers or suffocated them with a plastic bag or pillow, according to a statement issued by the investigating Swiss magistrate. The nurse claimed he “felt relieved, somehow liberated, after the person had died.” The man is to undergo psychiatric tests before the investigation continues. Euthanasia is tolerated in a number of Swiss cantons, provided strict rules are followed. It is not considered a crime if a doctor administers lethal drugs to a person “close to a painful death.”

The British Council of Disabled People (BCODP), an organization fully controlled by disabled people, congratulated the Law Lord’s decision not to allow assisted suicide on the basis of impairment in a press release dated January 10, 2002.¹⁹ David Colley, Chairperson of the group, insisted, “To make provisions for ending life that are different for disabled and non-disabled people is a terrifying prospect. We have already had an example this year of how disabled people’s deaths are encouraged with the health service putting ‘Do Not Resuscitate” orders on disabled patients as a matter of course.” Colley went on to explain, “Our own members include people who require significant daily living support, but we are clear that we do not want our lives ending and instead call on the Government to ensure that we receive the essential good quality independent living services which so many of us struggle to obtain.”

---

13	Dave Reynolds. "Oregon's Assisted Suicide Bill to Get Hearing" Inclusion Daily Express. April 14, 2000.
14	Ric Burger. "Being Disabled Isn't The Same As Lacking Autonomy." Inclusion Daily Express. April 17, 2000.
15	Jessie Lorenz, Amy Hasbrouck & Diane Coleman. "Disability Advocates Protest Starvation of Disabled Man." Not Dead Yet National Office: www.notdeadyet.org. May 29, 2001.
16	Judy Siegel. "Panel draws up guidelines for ending suffering of terminally ill." Jerusalem Post. January 18, 2002.
17	Note the lack of any persons identified as having disabilities represented on this decision-making committee!
18	Low Graphics. Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
19	David Colley. "Disabled People Back Law Lord's On refusal To Allow Assisted Suicide." British Council of Disabled People. January 10, 2002.

<< 4.1 The Canadian Social Climate | 4.3 Voices in Manitoba: What We Learned from Focus Group and Survey Participants >>


The Will To Live Template Project - Contents