Disability Rights and Assisted Suicide

Legalized assisted suicide profoundly and disproportionately affects people with disabilities. These negative effects are multiplied by existing discriminatory policies in health care and by the marketing of suicide and assisted suicide as suggested treatments for chronic illness or physical disability. The anti-disability rhetoric promulgated by suicide advocacy groups has resulted in increased disability-related suicides and assisted suicides, but also in a general atmosphere of increased anti-disability sentiment.

Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF)

DREDF recently updated their excellent web-based resources and position statement on assisted suicide.

A Disability Perspective on the Issue of Physician Assisted Suicide

This issue, which was published in January of 2010, is a thought-filled and comprehensive analysis of the effects of assisted suicide on people with disabilities.

Each article in this issue summarizes a separate but essential topic related to the effects of assisted suicide on the disability community. Combined, these articles illuminate the rationale for disability advocates long-term opposition to assisted suicide and clarify the unique risks that such legislation poses for people with disabilities. Articles debunk many of the tired clichs and propped up statistics promulgated by organizations such as Compassion and Choices as rationale for the assisted suicide legalization and shed light on the double standard of who gets suicide assistance and who gets suicide prevention.

Please scroll down for a complete listing of articles and to be connected to the PDF versions, including Killing Us Softly: The Dangers of Legalizing Assisted Suicide , by Marilyn Golden and Tyler Zoanni, which details an overview of the problems with the legalization of assisted suicide as public policy. Another article, by Carol Gill, entitled, No, we don't think our doctors are out to get us: Responding to the straw man distortions of disability rights arguments against assisted suicide is recommended especially to people in the disability community, as well as anyone who wants to truly understand the viewpoint of the disability community on assisted suicide in a way that it has rarely been explained before.

The Table of Contents

follows for the special edition of the Disability and Health Journal Volume 3, Issue 1, Pages 1-70 (January 2010) A Disability Perspective on the Issue of Physician Assisted Suicide.

Assisted suicide: Why this is an important issue for the Disability and Health Journal

Suzanne McDermott

The Oregon Death with Dignity Act: Results of a literature review and naturalistic inquiry

Charles E. Drum, Glen White, Genia Taitano, Willi Horner-Johnson

Killing us softly: the dangers of legalizing assisted suicide

Marilyn Golden, Tyler Zoanni

No, we don't think our doctors are out to get us: Responding to the straw man distortions of disability rights arguments against assisted suicide

Carol J. Gill

Assisted suicide laws create discriminatory double standard for who gets suicide prevention and who gets suicide assistance: Not Dead Yet Responds to Autonomy, Inc.

Diane Coleman

Reflections on the debate on disability and aid in dying

Gloria L. Krahn