Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide
Based in Connecticut, we oppose medical assisted suicide from the perspective of disability justice and human rights. Medical assisted suicide is a threat to the poor, disabled, people of color and the elderly. These are the people who now are marginalized and devalued in the system of healthcare as we know it today. They stand the greatest danger of being further victimized by medical assisted suicide.
Currently, one’s finances and insurance coverage determine the help that one receives, whether for medical treatments, mental health support, assistive equipment, personal care attendants, a secure living situation, improved palliative care, pain management, enhanced hospice care, etc. Members of Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide have seen firsthand the insistence with which some in the medical community deem people not worthy of treatment because there would “only be another hospital admission down the road,” or “they have no quality of life” because they are disabled or elderly. We have heard medical people try to inflict guilt on patients for staying alive, implying, or stating directly, that they should “think of how much they’re making their families suffer” by continuing treatments and “dragging out the inevitable.”
Supporters of medical assisted suicide often claim that their only opposition comes from the ultraconservative “religious fringe.” This is simply wrong. As progressives, we recognize that this is a human justice issue that lies at the heart of what kind of society we want to live in.
Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide supports LGBTQIA people’s rights and women’s reproductive rights. If you also believe in fighting for the human, civil and economic rights of LGBTQIA people and for reproductive justice, organize with us in ending euthanasia and medical assisted suicide where they exist, and in preventing their legalization elsewhere.
Let us share information and build a progressive, disability justice and human rights-based movement to end medical assisted suicide and euthanasia. Email us at: [email protected].
