On Friday, February 12, 2016, Not Dead Yet, NCIL, and ten other national and Tennessee state disability rights organizations have filed a friend of the court brief in the Court of Appeals, Middle District, in support of a lower court ruling dismissing a case seeking to legalize physician assisted suicide.
Joining in the Not Dead Yet brief are ADAPT, the Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the Disability Rights Center, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, Empower Tennessee, the Memphis Center for Independent Living, the National Council on Independent Living, the T.A.R.P. Center for Independent Living, the Tennessee Disability Coalition and United Spinal Association, collectively referred to as the “Disability Rights Amici.” Tennessee attorney Jennifer Lawson handled the filing on behalf of the disability organizations.
The case is Hooker v. Slatery (Case No. M2015-01982-COA-R3-CV) and the disability brief supports the Davidson County Chancery Court ruling which was issued September 29, 2015 and the Tennessee Attorney General seeking to uphold the ruling.
“Despite the passing of the lead plaintiff in the case, a well known and respected community leader, the doctor plaintiffs in the case have moved forward with their appeal,” said Carol Westlake, executive director of the Tennessee Disability Coalition. “We respect Mr. Hooker’s feelings as an individual, but a public policy of assisted suicide poses serious dangers to our constituency, people with disabilities of all ages.”
“Our basic position is that when some people get suicide prevention while other people get suicide assistance, and the difference is the person’s age, disability or health status, that’s a problem,” said Not Dead Yet’s president and CEO, Diane Coleman. “It’s a problem of devaluation of people who are being told that others not only agree with their suicide, which is bad enough, but will even help them carry it out. It’s a deadly form of discrimination and, as our brief says, it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
Each of the Disability Rights Amici brings a specific perspective to the policy debate about assisted suicide. For example, the primary mission of ADAPT is to ensure that seniors and people with disabilities are not forced into nursing facilities, but have the choice to receive consumer directed long term care services in their own home. “If the only alternative to death that those in power offer people who require assistance is poverty and segregation in nursing facilities, then it makes no sense to talk about assisted suicide as a ‘choice'”, said Bob Kafka, an ADAPT organizer based in Austin, Texas.
Many people with disabilities acquire them as a result of accidents or trauma, and their prognosis is often uncertain in the early stages. “If assisted suicide had been legal in the past, even if it were supposedly only for those with ‘terminal’ conditions, many of us would not be here today,” said Kelly Buckland, executive director of the National Council on Independent Living. “I might not be here today, and I’m grateful that assisted suicide was not legal back then, and I’m committed to keeping it that way.”
The brief also expresses concerns about the context of health care cost-cutting in which assisted suicide is being advocated. “In an aging society where elder abuse is a growing problem, elders too often face economic or other pressures to get out of the way, whether those pressures come from the health care system or, sadly, from family,” Coleman said.
For more information, go to www.notdeadyet.org.
