Posted on 03/07/2012 4:10:26 PM PST by wagglebee
Disability rights activists from across Massachusetts will speak today before the Massachusetts legislatures joint Judiciary Committee in opposition to a ballot question that would legalize assisted suicide. The activists are members of the recently formed group, Second Thoughts: People with Disabilities Opposing the Legalization of Assisted Suicide. The hearing will be at 1 p.m. in room A-2 at the state house.
Second Thoughts is a group of disability rights activists and organizations who believe that assisted suicide is a dangerous mix with a broken, profit driven health care system, said John Kelly, the groups director.
Economic and family pressures can make elderly and disabled people feel like theyre a burden, said member Karen Schneiderman. Under those conditions, how can a choice to commit suicide be considered a free choice?
Schneiderman said that "I don't believe that Massachusetts voters want to pass a law that discriminates against old, ill and disabled people by singling them out for assisted suicide, while young, healthy people get suicide prevention services."
Kelly stresses that the proposed law lacks safeguards to protect elders and other vulnerable populations from abuse. An heir can help make the request, sign as a witness and pick up the prescription. Once the lethal drug is in the home, no one will know if it's taken voluntarily. If the person changed their mind, if they struggled, who would know?
Kelly emphasized that, under current law, people have the right to refuse or stop medical treatment, including food and water. People also have the right to adequate pain relief, even to the point of sedation.
The culture of death wants to kill as many people as possible, they couldn't care less about safeguards.
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I agree on you on many things. But we will never see eye to eye on someone’s decision to take their own life.
If there is ONE THING we, as humans, should completely control, it is our own existence. It is the ultimate expression in personal freedom.
It is between the individual and their God — and is no one else’s business. The State should not intervene, one way or the other, in an individual’s decisions about ending life. Certainly well-meaning people should stay out of it.
Me? If I am brain dead, pull the plug (I have that request on file with my lawyer and my wife). My brother, OTOH, has asked me to be his caretaker, executor, etc. and has made it clear UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS THE PLUG TO BE PULLED (caps, his not mine). Interesting how different people approach end of life decisions.
I firmly believe in “adequate pain relief”, but I most vehemently oppose “assisted suicide”.
First they came for the Jews then they came for...
Slippery slope we don’t want to go down.
This has nothing to do with a plug, or forgoing extreme measures. This is about actively killing people.
Second Thoughts is a group of disability rights activists and organizations who believe that assisted suicide is a dangerous mix with a broken, profit driven health care system, said John Kelly, the groups director.
What a stupid thing to say. As if it would be fine to “suicide” people if the government ran the operation...but the private industry is dangerous!
There’s a crowd in Massachusetts who are slobbering and breathing heavy for the chance to get some of that assisted suicide for other people!
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