transabled.org

I signed. Thanks, Sean.

Ditto.

People should be able to self-determine their existance (and termination). Whether or not Mr. Kevorkian ethically murdered anyone (as opposed to the legal definition, which does not permit assisted suicide) is another question.

Frankly I would not want to be kept alive simply because someone else decides the suffering I’m in is something I MUST endure. Screw that.

Marie, I’m sorry you feel that way. There is an issue with assisting people with disabilities in dying. Don’t you see the discrimination here? If someone without a disability gets suicidal, they are sent to the shrink, but if somoene with a disability gets suicidal, they are told “let us help you die”… It’s wrong.

It’s like saying “It’s OK if you want to die because as a disabled person your life has less value than an able-bodied person. Plus, you’re a drag on society or your family’s finances. And I’d rather be dead than disabled, personally. So, let’s snuff you out, and be rid of the problem altogether.”

In what case should someone be prohibited from making a decision in their own life or to end their own life?

Don’t you see the double standard that is in place? People like us wish to damage a healthy body but others say we may not. And here there are people who wish to die but others who say they may not.

Marie, I agree there’s double-standards, but I think that it’s more obvious in comparing how “keen” society is to help the disabled die, as opposed to as hesitant to help non-disabled people suicide.

The other problem here is that entirely too often, people may not actually want to die, they just don’t see any other option, and had they been given proper support, would have realised life is good. The number of SCI folks I spoke to who told me that the first year post-injury, they wanted to die, but several years post injury, they believe their quality of life is better than ever and are quite happy they didn’t manage to kill themselves.

At Kevorkian’s trial that got him convicted (did I mention I was *there*), they showed part of the ‘60 Minutes’ tape where Kevorkian “assisted” someone to die. The part they didn’t show on tv, but which was seen in court was that Mr. Youk (the man Kevorkian murdered) said “Wait”, before Kevorkian gave the injection. It was a very clear “wait”, and just as clearly, Kevorkian looked up, paused, and deliberately went ahead and finished “pushing the plunger”.

Then of course there’s the fact that legalising physician assisted suicide opens the door to even more abuse than there is already. The “right to die” ones always use examples of people with cancer in terminal and painful phase of their disease. And that’s a difficult one, of course. But as it stands, doctors help those patient die, all the time, “just a bit more morphine”, till the body gives out. So, there is abuse now, what would it be like if it was legally allowed?

I could well imagine an elderly person feel that they become too much of a burden on their family and “wishing” to die. Society is very good at putting pressure on.

The disparity of helping the disabled die but keeping the able bodied alive is one of the things that get under my skin.

There are some people who are now saying we should help anyone who wants to die, it’s the ultimate “right”, control over one’s own life. And I can see your point Marie, when you say we’re asking for damage to a healthy body.

So my question is, do they *really* want to die? I don’t think so. But even if they did, then if we really don’t want double standards, then we have to make suicide “ok”, and help anyone who wants to die, rather than have suicide help-lines, and shrinks etc.

Sean there’s a waiting game. The people you mention said that after a year they felt better about their injury. How long should someone wait? At least two weeks surely. Six months? A year? Ten years?

Should an individual be forced to endure such a dramatic change to their livlihood?

I’m not suggesting that anyone who becomes paralysed, deaf (!), or who loses a limb should be sent off to be “euthenised” but it is naive to think that everyone will be happy with their impairments or will be able to come to terms with them.

How can a balance be struck between self-determination and your implied tendency of society at large to strongly encourage disabled people to self-terminate?

“What would it be like if it were legally allowed?” - Probably not much different! The people who want to die will have the means the rest of the population will carry on living. Your rhetorical question is the same thing people “ask” when they seek to deny gay couples the right to marriage/civil partnership. A slippery slope is a poor argument.

As I said: whether or not Mr. Kevorkian murdered an unwilling person is irrelevant to the discussion of assisted suicide or a “right to die” movement. A foreign married gay man that blows up a bus is no reason to deny rights to gay people, after all.

There’s nothing wrong with having suicide help lines and therapists and having a society that tolerates and helps those who want to die to do so. They’re not mutually exclusive ideas. I, for one, would rather my spouse sought extensive psychological counseling before sie terminated hir life.

You make very good points :)

One of the problems is that people with disabilities are no, in general, given the resources they need to adapt, and to get better lives. One cited example of one of the people Kevorkian killed is that of a man who said he didn’t want to die in an urine soaked bed in a nursing home. How different would it have been for him had there been supports and resources in place for him to live in his own home, and not be stuck in a nursing home, and have the PA help he required?

If you’re never given a chance, if you don’t know what your options are, it’s entirely too easy to think dying is the only alternative. And while in theory, you should be told about the few options you have, the reality is, people are not give options. If the medical people handling newly injured folks even know what the options are (which in my ten years experience working in that field isn’t the case). Social workers are also part of a greater block that thinks “medical model”, and tend not to think about solutions such as in-home care, etc.

Kevorkian’s actions are in fact at the heart of the assisted suicide debate. He himself states that he filmed his actions in the case of Mr. Youk’s murder to bring attention to the debate of assisted suicide. And I call it murder, because he was convicted of such.

But the other danger here is that if Kevorkian speaks to “today’s youth” and gives the message that it’s better to be dead than disabled, then these youth will grow up and will espouse values that put people with disabilities on the par of a disposable commodity.

Between the general medical bias against people with disabilities, and the obvious media’s bias against disabilities (I’m not the one saying there is such a bias, it’s in several studies), the only people who can win are those who wish to kill us off.

I feel *very* strongly about this, and this is one where I shan’t change my position. I suspect you feel just as strongly and won’t change your position either. Perhaps we should just call it a day and agree to disagree… Though if you want to spend an eye-opening few hours, have a read through http://notdeadyet.org

You’re fighting a different issue, or you should be. Your cause isn’t assisted suicide but rather societal attitude towards disabled people (and probably privatised health care, which would likely not pay for nursing care and a PA for the person in your first paragraph).

shoot me down if you want Marie, I think Sean is trying to say that he believes it is wrong to help someone commit suicide if they haven’t been shown all the opportunities in their life like in home care etc.

It’s most certainly double standards to say a healthy person shouldn’t commit suicide but someone with a disability should be assisted.

You *do* realise that by arguing that a patient who wishes to self-terminate (for WHATEVER reason - whether it be societal pressure against the disabled, terminal disease, or just plain depression) does not have the right to seek the assistance of a physician, you are ALSO arguing that those who are TA do not have the right to seek the assistance of a physician in achieving our own needed alterations to our physical state, right?

There is NO way to separate these arguments. As such, by opposing the right to seek physician assistance for self-termination, you are actively opposing our right as transabled people to EVER receive the assistance of the medical profession in achieving our own needs.

Therefore, I feel that we are, once again, on opposite sides of the argument on how to proceed. This makes me wonder if some of the people here are suffering from such self-hatred for being transabled that they are subconsciously taking steps to actively oppose any hope of improving our options for the future.

-Kyla

No Kyla, it is not the same argument at all. In one case, the request is to terminate life. In the other case, it is to improve quality of life. It’s a major distinction.

You absolutely cannot equate the two.

In both cases, it is the person seeking a physician’s assistance in accomplishing a goal that is considered socially unacceptable, to deal with a problem that they feel is insurmountable in any other way. If you deny the person that choice in one case, it WILL set precedent for society to forbid them that choice in the other.

ok Kyla, I will tell you what I told Marie. We will never agree on this. So let’s stop this conversation. You’ve said your bit, I’ve said my bit. The end.

If you have watched a loved one suffer a painful death, you may think otherwise. I lost my sister 12 years ago to cancer. I was not able to be with her at the end, but our parents were. Assisted suicide is not for the benefit of the onlooker and mourners, it is for the person who is at the end of there life and no longer wishes to suffer. MY sister carried on to the end, determined to suck every breath she was entitled to. I did not wish assisted suicide for her, but if that would have been her last wish, then so be it.

Reality check. A registered nurse told me years ago that when a terminally ill person is at death’s doorstep. it is quite common for the medical professionals to “help” them over the threshold.. a little extra morphine, usually.

I do not think Kevorkian actually promotes death for the paraplegic, blind, amputee, etc. We as a group would love to have legitimate, elective procedures to help us with our situations, so we can not argue against fulfilling the wishes of those at the end of their lives.

The domino effect argument is often used by those against something. It is logical and must be given consideration. But we are talking about procedures done under strict control and regulations, not a wholesale Nazi erra slaughter of those who do not quite fit the mould.