Tag: Second Thoughts CT

Medical Assisted Suicide Defeated Once Again in Connecticut

by Joan Cavanagh, Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide

SB 1076, making it legal for doctors to prescribe lethal drugs for terminally ill patients, was halted in the Judiciary Committee on April 19. The Committee decided not to call for a vote because there was not nearly enough support to pass the legislation. A number of Democrats on the Committee clearly did not share the enthusiasm of some of their colleagues for this dangerous bill, which would threaten the lives of the most vulnerable in our discriminatory, profit-driven medical system.

During the subsequent discussion, it was clear that opposition to this legislation does not merely come from those with a religious perspective, thanks to Rep. Steven Strafstrom (D., Bridgeport), as well as signs held by members of Progressives Against Medical Assisted. In concluding remarks, Stafstrom acknowledged the pain and grief of some of the individual advocates of the bill, but added: “I also want to acknowledge that this is not an issue where there is only passion on one side. I think there is passion and also rightfully concern on the other side of this, which we heard a little bit on this committee today, and certainly we’ve heard in our discussions in the Democratic caucus on this bill over the last few years as well. And no, it’s not all about religion. I’m tired of hearing that…Frankly it’s insulting.”

Stafstrom said that he had been “struggling” with the bill but had begun increasingly to question it in part because of recent legislative and judicial efforts in states such as Oregon and Vermont, where Medical Assisted Suicide is legal, to weaken or remove even the currently existing restrictions. One of the arguments Second Thoughts Connecticut and Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide have repeatedly made against this legislation is that it is the strategy of Compassion and Choices to first get the laws enacted and then to expand their scope either through the legislature or through the courts.

Many thanks to those who have written, spoken, and worked against this bill for the last five months.

Help Counter the Upcoming Effort to Pass Medical Assisted Suicide Legislation

by Joan Cavanagh, Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide

In the middle of a pandemic that has killed close to a million people in this country, in the face of a medical system that repeatedly shows itself unable and unwilling to try to save the lives of the most vulnerable, members of the CT State Legislature are gearing up once again to try to legalize Medical Assisted Suicide. The session begins in February, and “Compassion and Choices” has already hired at least one extra lobbyist to help push it through. You may remember that they got it out of the Public Health Committee for the first time last year.

Incredibly, some of the same leaders who say they are planning an all-out effort to reform Connecticut’s mental health system by increasing funding and staffing (see https://ctmirror.org/2022/01/11/ct-legislative-leaders-mental-health-system-in-deep-crisis-is-priority-in-2022-session/) will also be pushing for this legislation.

Constituent pressure is the only thing that will cause the liberal Democrats in favor of this to change their minds. New or seldom heard voices are especially important to weigh in on this!

PLEASE: 1. If you have a personal connection to any of the Democratic legislators (not limited to those members of the Public Health Committee, where this legislation is likely to be introduced), start talking to them now to let them know of your objections. And prepare to keep talking to them as the bill with its specific language takes shape.

2. If you’re part of a political organization or religious group whose membership identifies as largely liberal or progressive, introduce this as a topic on their agenda. Speak up about it yourself and invite members of Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide (which formed in New Haven in August) to address them in person or via Zoom. We are interested in meeting with these folks as soon as we can.

Joan Cavanagh is also a member Second Thoughts CT and the New Haven Sunday Vigil for Peace and Justice.

The Myopia of Medical Assisted Suicide

by Joan Cavanagh, member, Second Thoughts CT

“In Austin, Texas, at a ‘You Can’t Close America!’ rally, hundreds of demonstrators, nearly all-white, defied social-distancing guidelines by gathering on the steps of the Capitol…A woman wearing a Keep America Great cap waved a sign reading, ‘My Life, My Death, My Choice, Personal Responsibility…‘” [bold emphasis added.]

See Linda Villarosa, “Who Lives? Who Dies? How COVID-19 has revealed the deadly realities of a racially polarized America,” New York Times Magazine, May 3, 2020, p. 50.

“My life, my death, my choice” is the slogan of Compassion and Choices, the national organization devoted to promoting Medical Assisted Suicide (MAS). That it found its way to a Trump-supporting super-spreader event is not surprising, since the implication is that individual behavior has no impact on the lives of others. One of many reasons to oppose MAS is because the premise of these bills is the same.

“Death with dignity” is a phrase often used by MAS proponents, suggesting that the level of care required by many who are disabled, elderly, or very ill somehow demeans them and is a burden on others and on society. This is a fundamental denial of our human connection and responsibility to and for one another.

Even more insidious, Medical Assisted Suicide can easily morph into treatment-rationing for patients whose health care is deemed too expensive for hospitals and insurance companies to sustain. The COVID crisis has dramatically revealed the ways in which poor, disabled, elderly, black and brown people are already discriminated against within the medical system.

Its advocates argue that MAS is intended only for those with a “terminal illness.” But definitions of what is “terminal” are fluid and subjective, life expectancy projections often mistaken. Treatment (or lack thereof) is too often determined by what a patient’s insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid, will and will not cover. Many diseases are “terminal” if left untreated. Allowing doctors to prescribe lethal medication offers a cost-effective “out” for insurers.

While it may provide an individual “choice” for a select few, among its many evils the legalization of Medical Assisted Suicide also opens the door to increased limitations on health care, which is an existential threat to the many. Please tell your state representatives to vote “No” on HB 6425, now pending in the Public Health Committee.

Assisted Suicide? It Depends Where You Stand

by Lisa Blumberg, Second Thoughts Connecticut

It’s déjà vu as the legislature again considers an assisted suicide bill.  How you feel about assisted suicide seems to depend on whether you have always had full access to quality health care or are part of a group that has been subject to health care disparities and devaluation.

Let’s be clear. This is not a patients’ rights bill. People al-ready have the right to refuse any treatment they don’t want.

It does not expand access to palliative care. It does not assure that everyone has the same opportunities for life-saving treatment or in-home care. It certainly does NOT eliminate medical prejudices.

This is a bill that gives doctors immunity for prescribing lethal drugs to certain patients who ask for them, if minimal criteria are met.

The supposed safeguards only apply to the prescribing of drugs rather than their use. We don’t know if a patient is competent when he takes them. We don’t know if he is having “a bad day.” We don’t know anything. We cannot afford to just have faith.

We are living in grim times. The difficulties created by the pandemic have caused domestic abuse to skyrocket. (1) There are bound to be at least some cases where a person is steered or coerced into taking the pills by someone whose life might be emotionally, practically, or financially easier if he died sooner rather than later.

A Boston University study has found that COVID-19 related stressors have caused one out of three adults to be depressed. The lead author wrote. “We would hope that these findings promote creating a society where a robust safety net exists.” (2)

Legalizing assisted suicide would increase the shredding of the social fabric. Now is not the time for the state to enact this type of law.

Lisa Blumberg is a lawyer, writer and disability rights activist. She is a member of Second Thoughts Connecticut.

Footnotes
1. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200818/radiology-study-suggests-horrifying-rise-in-domestic-violence-during-pandemic#1
2. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/09/ depression-triples-us-adults-amid-covid-19-stressors

Here is a link to an Op-Ed piece by Ms. Blumberg, published in the CT Mirror on Jan. 19, 2021.
https://ctmirror.org/category/ct-viewpoints/separating-myth-and-reality-in-aid-in-dying.

Nine Reasons to Oppose Assisted Suicide: What Progressives Need to Know

by Joan Cavanagh, Second Thoughts CT member

In the February 2019 PAR newsletter, Lisa Blumberg, of Second Thoughts Connecticut, wrote: “Trump wants the Affordable Care Act to implode. Republicans seem willing to swell the ranks of the uninsured and to cut Medicaid funding. There are corporate imperatives to reduce health-care costs even if quality is diminished. Many people are unable to access basic care and minorities, the old and people with disabilities are often subject to medical prejudices or ‘quality of life’ misconceptions. Legalizing doctor-assisted suicide in these times would be akin to taking coals to Newcastle.”

A year later, nothing has changed, only gotten worse. Yet the Public Health Committee of the Connecticut State Legislature is once again poised to consider an “Aid in Dying” (“Assisted Suicide”) bill. The dangers of such legislation should become more and more obvious every day.

Assisted suicide is fraught with peril for the most vulnerable among us–the elderly, disabled and poor, who are already viewed by the medical system and the insurance companies as too costly to treat and thus expendable. There are no imaginable “safeguards” that can change that fact. This legislation would only codify what we have experienced and had to fight in our daily lives—and which has already cost the lives of far too many.

Below are Nine Reasons to Oppose Assisted Suicide.

  1. In our cost-cutting health care system, it encourages the rationing of health care for the most “expensive” patients: the elderly, disabled, seriously ill and poor.
    2. It subjects the vulnerable to potential overt or covert abuse that can never be adequately monitored.
    3. It encourages a rush to judgment as to how “terminal illness” is defined.
    4. It promotes the idea of extreme individualism and self-sufficiency, the notion that being vulnerable and needing care is somehow “undignified,” the idea that we live in a vacuum with no responsibility for or to each other.
    5. It erodes patient confidence in our health care providers, causing justified fear that they will advocate for the suicide option in difficult cases.
    6. It requires doctors to lie about the facts of a patient’s death, citing the illness as the cause, not the ingestion of the lethal medication.
    7. It does not necessarily guarantee a “peaceful” or immediate end of life.
    8. It promotes suicide as an option in a time where suicide among the young is increasing and suicide prevention is public policy.
    9. It opens the door to involuntary euthanasia of those deemed “defective,” such as people with advanced dementia or severe disability that renders them unable to communicate.

For more explanation of these and other reasons to oppose assisted suicide, please go to www.notdeadyet.org and dredf.org/public-policy/assisted suicide.

Progressives and disability rights advocates have a compelling case to make here. We need to voice our opposition loudly and clearly, and to help educate others about the full implications of this legislation so that they will indeed have “second thoughts.”

There is a list of Public Health Committee members at cga.ct.gov. Please write to ask them to withdraw this bill. (It did not yet have a number as this newsletter went to press.)

Joan Cavanagh, a long-time peace and justice activist, is a member of Second Thoughts Connecticut, a bi-partisan organization composed of citizens with disabilities and advocates who oppose the legalization of assisted suicide.