Tag: PAMAS

Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide to Be Viewed at Women’s & Gender Studies Conference

by Paula Panzarella, PAMAS

Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide, produced last year by Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide (PAMAS), will be featured at Southern Connecticut State University’s Women’s & Gender Studies Conference.

After the film viewing, there will be a presentation via Zoom by Anita Cameron and audience discussion.

Anita is a disability justice activist who has been involved in social change activism and community organizing for 44 years. As a Black disabled lesbian, Anita has dealt with racisim, sexism, ableism, and homophobia – sometimes combinations of these.

As of this printing, the workshop “Medical Assisted Suicide: A Threat to the Vulnerable” is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, April 18, 1:45-3 p.m. More information is at https://inside.southernct.edu/womens-and-gender-studies/conferences/2026, or call 203-392-6133.

Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide Film Showings in September

by Joan Cavanagh, PAMAS member

Recently produced by Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide (PAMAS) and Karyl Evans Productions LLC, the 36-minute film, Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide, will be presented followed by discussion with the filmmakers and audience members at the Fair Haven Public Library, 182 Grand Ave., on Thursday, Sept. 11 from 6-7:30 p.m. and at the Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven, 700 Hartford Turnpike, Hamden, on Sept. 14 from noon until 2 p.m.

The film considers the historical context, current practice, and impact on health care of enabling medical providers to offer lethal drugs to patients for the purpose of ending their own lives.

With poetry and song written and performed by West Haven, Connecticut-based poet, songwriter, and performance artist Elaine Kolb, it features interviews with disability and social justice activists including Anita Cameron of Rochester, New York, former Director of Community Outreach at Not Dead Yet; Jules Good, programs coordinator of the Autism Self Advocacy Network and the founder and director of Neighborhood Access LLC of Barrington, New Hampshire; nationally and internationally recognized palliative care specialist Dr. Diane Meier, professor at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine; retired Connecticut disability rights attorney Nancy Alisberg; and five local community activists. It is narrated by Scott Harris, producer of the WPKN radio program, Counterpoint, and includes ASL interpretation by American School for the Deaf Community Interpreting.

Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide premiered at the Miller Library in Hamden on March 25 and has since been shown at five other venues in Connecticut, including the West Haven, Woodbridge, and Westville Public Libraries, as well as two classes at the University of Hartford. It is streaming on the PAMAS website, https://pamasprogressives.org, into September.

Please contact PAMAS at progressivesagainstmas@hotmail.com if you know of a venue that might be interested in a future showing and discussion of the film.

For more information, visit the website at https://pamasprogressives.org.

Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide was partially funded by the Haymarket People’s Fund and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, with support from the Patients’ Rights Action Fund and Not Dead Yet, and fiscal sponsorship from the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and the Center for Disability Rights, New York.

Please Help PAMAS Create a Documentary Film

Joan Cavanagh, member, Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide (PMAS)

Public discussion about the realities of Medical Assisted Suicide (MAS) is critical. The practice is increasingly becoming normalized as a “health care” option and already inadequate safeguards and restrictions in existing laws are eroding.

Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide (PAMAS) is fundraising to create a documentary examining this issue in a critical light. We hope our film will add another dimension to a conversation that has thus far been dominated by the religious right (which opposes MAS for its own reasons, which we do not share) and by liberal supporters who discount the disability and social justice arguments against it.

The documentary will be produced by Emmy award-winning filmmaker Karyl Evans, based in North Haven. 100% of all money raised will cover the filmmaker, crew, and associated expenses. Research, writing, organizing, and review will be done by volunteer (unpaid) PAMAS members.

“Better off dead” is the lens through which those of us who are old, disabled, and/or seriously ill are viewed, including by many medical professionals. Combine that prejudice with the for-profit medical system and its corrosive “you don’t want to be a burden” message and you have a lethal mix. Medical Assisted Suicide only opens another avenue for impossible-to-document coercion, neglect, and abuse,
both institutional and personal.

The organizations lobbying most avidly to pass MAS legislation are also hard at work to reduce the limited restrictions and safeguards in the laws that have already been enacted in 11 jurisdictions in the United States: ending state residency requirements; reducing or eliminating waiting periods;
broadening the kinds of medical providers who can prescribe the lethal drugs; and expanding the categories of patients (including those with dementia) who can qualify. Thus, even former supporters have begun to rethink the passage of such laws.

Please consider helping PAMAS present another side to this discussion. Make your check out to Center for Disability Rights.

IMPORTANT: Write “NDY/PAMAS” in the check memo line.

Mail checks to PAMAS, care of Joan Cavanagh
34 Walnut St., Floor 1
New Haven CT 06511

Donations are tax-deductible.

For more information, contact joan.cavanagh@gmail.com. Our website is pamasprogressives.org.

Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide Launches New Website

by Joan Cavanagh, Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide

Thanks to co-hosting and considerable technical assistance from the Patients Rights Action Fund (PRAF), Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide (PAMAS) now has its own website, pamasprogressives.org. It’s an ongoing endeavor (and the three of us managing it have a steep technical learning curve) but we’re on our way! We will be adding updates, news, and information as things develop.

As PAR readers know, PAMAS formed in 2021 to open a path for leftist and progressive opposition to legislation enabling physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to terminate their patients’ lives. We believe that those who are committed, as we are, to universal, comprehensive, fully accessible, unrestricted, high-quality health and palliative care must stand equally strongly against MAS, which will contribute further to the already existing deadly discrimination against the most vulnerable among us.

PAMAS members disagree with those who favor these laws but we agree on many other issues. We support and advocate for reproductive rights, disability justice, labor rights, the rights of LGBTQIA people, and for prison and police reform. Many of us are lifelong war resisters and several of us worked to help repeal the death penalty in our state. We see MAS as a serious threat to the lives of the most vulnerable among us and to our vision of a just society. The website provides links to testimonies, as well as articles by others and several links to outside sources. More will follow. We hope that you’ll visit.

With allies in the disability justice movement, we helped to defeat the most recent MAS bills proposed in Connecticut. Each year, the well-funded proponents bring up more legislation, and we are sure they’ll be ready to go in 2024. We plan to be ready, too.

One further appeal: we need a progressive, experienced videographer who agrees with us on this issue to help us produce a video as soon as possible. We’ll try to raise some funds, although this would need to be a labor of love as well. If you’re interested, please contact me at joan.cavanagh@gmail.com or the group at progressivesagainstmas@hotmail.com.