MCIL News Release Archive
				National ADAPT
				M C I L
				Tennessee ADAPT
				Not Dead Yet!
				B F M S

NEWS RELEASE

May 8, 1997

Not Dead Yet and ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today), will rally May 8 in front of the Florida Supreme Court to oppose physician assisted suicide. The Florida Supreme Court will consider the case of McIver v. Krischer, involving Mr. Charlie Hall, who has the AIDS virus, and who is petitioning for medical assistance to end his own life.

Not Dead Yet is a national organization of people with disabilities and our allies who oppose the legalization of physician assisted suicide, because it singles out people with health impairments for assistance to die. Legalizing this practice, according to Not Dead Yet, will create a double standard, based on health status, for how society responds to a person's expression of a desire to die. The group calls this a very dangerous practice, particularly in view of the limitations and cutbacks being imposed by health care providers, both public and private. ADAPT is a national organization demanding a national system of non-institutional home care as an alternative to nursing homes.

Given the pervasive prejudice against people with disabilities and health conditions, and the absense of adequate health care and support services, abuses are likely to result in the wrongful death of numerous persons, old and young. Over the past decade, some courts have already stated that people with non-terminal disabilities should have the same "right to die" as people with terminal illnesses.

The Fifteenth Judicial Curcuit Court, in approving Hall's request, quoted from Bouvia v. Superior Court, a 1986 assisted suicide case involving a woman with nonterminal cerebral palsy. The judge wrote, "Does it matter if it be 15 to 20 years, 15 to 20 months, or 15 to 20 days, if such life has been physically destroyed and its quality, dignity and purpose gone?" This reasoning appears to support a "better dead than disabled" mentality, which Not Dead Yet believes will result in many assisted suicides without exploring other health options and supports.

Not Dead Yet understands the HIV/AIDS community has suffered many losses over the past seventeen years. But with the development of new medications, many people with HIV/AIDS now view HIV as a manageable disease, not a terminal illness.

Not Dead Yet warns that economic pressures may cause physician and societal support for the act of suicide, particularly when the health care needs of chronically ill people are being called too costly. When some dying patients agree to a hastened and cheaper death, how will insurance companies view the requests of other dying patients for pain management, hospice care, support services, and other needed health care? NDY believes that such requests may come to be seen as greedy, and the proposed extension of the "right to die" may become a "duty to die." These activists maintain that the benefit to the few who want active aid in dying is far outweighed by the threat to many people trying simply to live with disabilities.

NDY urges the HIV/AIDS community to identify with the broader disability community, and to focus on defending our civil rights rather than accepting society's devaluation of our lives.

Local, Memphis:

Tim Wheat
(901) 726-6404 * (901) 726-6521 fax
1633 Madison Avenue  - Memphis TN 38104

National:

Steve Drake
Rochester, NY.

Diane Coleman
(708) 209-1500 ext. 11
7521 Madison St., - Forest Park, IL 60130

Lucy Gwin
Editor of Mouth
(716) 244-6599

The Memphis Center for Independent Living
1633 Madison Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 726-6404 v/tty (901) 726-6521 fax
mcil@mcil.org 

MCIL is a United Way of the Mid-South member Agency

Return to the top of this page

MCIL would like feedback on the accessibility of this website.  Please send your comments and concerns to webmaster@mcil.org

© 2006 Tim Wheat